My Happy Ending
by prplerayne
Summary: What's done is done. After the events of 'Right Next Door' can Danny and Lindsay find a way to move on? Even better, will they move on together or seperately? D/L Spoilers for 4.16 'Right Next Door'. A/N: please, no Danny, Rikki or D/L bashing!
1. Chapter 1

My Happy Ending

Disclaimer: I don't own CSI:NY, or any of it's characters. If I did, certain events never would have transpired, but, since I don't own jack, certain events did.

A/N: This is how my muse has chosen to deal with 'Right Next Door'. I have a vague idea where this is going, but your reviews, impressions, comments and suggestions are always welcome and helpful! I only ask one thing when you review; and that is to be respectful. I am trying to handle the whole thing with Danny and Rikki in a tasteful, respectful manner, and I ask that you be respectful to the situation, Danny, Rikki, Lindsay and the Danny/Lindsay ship in your reviews.

_'_

_You were everything,everything  
That I wanted  
We were meant to be, supposed to be  
But we lost it  
And all of the memories so close to me  
Just fade away  
All this time you were pretending  
So much for my happy ending  
ohh, ohh, ohh, ohh, ohh, ohh, ohhhh_

_-Avril Lavigne "My Happy Ending" _

Pulling open the door, Lindsay looked at the man on the other side. She didn't particularly want to talk to Danny right now, but, he'd been so insistent on it that she'd finally caved and told him to come over to her place after shift. If she was totally honest with herself, she knew deep down that she wasn't going to like what he had to say, so it seemed logical to have him come over to her place. That way, she could just tell him to leave instead of wasting precious time trying to get back to her place if she felt the need to be alone or fall apart.

"Hi," she stepped aside letting him enter.

Managing to make brief eye contact, Danny quickly averted his gaze and entered. He hated what he was about to do to her, but he firmly believed that if they were to ever have a fighting chance he had to be honest with her. He just hoped she felt the same way and would forgive him his for his one transgression.

_One transgression? Really? Come on Messer, how the fuck are you going to make up for this if she doesn't know the score? _

Briefly, Danny wondered if he was doing the right thing by telling her this. After all, the affair had only turned physical twice. He didn't have to tell her about the emotional part of it, did he? Oh, who was he kidding? Of course he had to tell her about that too; and that is what hurt Danny the most. As much as he dreaded telling his Montana that he'd taken another woman to his bed, had offered her breakfast, and taken her to bed again, he really dreaded telling her that somewhere along the way,he'd stopped investing his emotional energy into his relationship with her, and started to invest it into Rikki.

"What's up?"

"Um, Linds, we really need to talk. About you. About me. About us."

It was bad, she could tell. Instead of voicing this however, she steeled herself for whatever he had to say and kept silent, a cue for him to continue.

"I slept with Rikki," he hadn't meant to blurt it out like that. He wanted to be gentle and tactful about it; but he was certain there was no tactful way to tell the woman you cared so deeply for, that you cheated on her. Sure, they'd never sat down and explicitly said they were in an exclusive relationship, but he knew Lindsay wasn't the type of woman who engaged in casual sex.

A punch in the gut. That was what those words felt like to her. Danny just admitted to cheating on her. How was she supposed to respond to that?

"You w..w...what," she stuttered out, the cold reality of his words reaching into her chest like an icy fist and squeezing until she could hardly breath.

"I slept with Ruben's mother. It didn't mean anything, I swear. I was just hurting and she's the only one that understands. She came over and one thing led to another and..."

Lindsay cut him off not really wanting to hear all the ugly details, "when?"

"Baby that's not important."

"Like hell it's not important Danny! When? How long have you been doing this behind my back? When did the lies start?"

"Montana, baby, I never lied to you, I swear," he pleaded his case, watching the emotions: hurt, sadness, anger, betrayal and worst of all, blame, flit across her features like a video tape put on fast forward.

"Don't you dare Danny! Don't call me Montana!"

"Lindsay come on, you have to believe me!"

"Believe you? Why should I believe you Danny?"

"I'm telling you the truth. I never meant for this to happen. I would never do anything to hurt you. Do you understand that?" He knew that didn't really matter now. He had hurt her and she had every right to call him a liar and a cheat, he just hoped she wouldn't.

With her arms clutched around her middle, as if holding herself together, Lindsay began to pace the length of the room. "So, you would never do anything to hurt me. You pushed me away, closed yourself off emotionally, slept with another woman and lied to me; but you would never do anything to hurt me? Well guess what? You did hurt me," the tears she'd been trying so desperately to hold back, began to spill from her eyes.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the floor, not able to watch her pained face any longer.

"Sorry? You're sorry? Well, that just makes it all better, now doesn't it," she laughed bitterly, her shock over being betrayed, giving way to sadness and anger all at the same time.

"I know this doesn't make anything better. I just hope that...that maybe we can start over."

"You want to start over? You come over here, tell me this, and you want to start over," she knew he was well aware of what he had said to her, but repeating it seemed to be the only way she could deal right now.

Danny took off his glasses and swiped at his stinging eyes before standing directly in the path of her pacing, forcing her to either face him or turn her back on him. She faced him, the tears of pain and anger leaving red streaks on the creamy skin of her cheeks.

"Be honest with me Danny. How long has this been going on?"

"We slept together two days ago."

Realization dawned on her then, "so, I guess you never made it to the dry cleaners, bank or shop? You blew off lunch with me to bang the grieving mother." Her last sentence not a question, but a statement of the facts as she saw them.

"That's not why I blew off lunch with you. I wanted to see you that day, but I couldn't. I just...couldn't."

"You couldn't because you were having sex with her."

"No! Well...yeah. I was ashamed of what I'd done the night before," he conceded, shame lacing his voice as the true gravity of his infidelity pricked his consciousness.

"Was that the only time?"

"That was the only time, I swear Linds. I'd never touched her before then."

"So, let me see if I have this right," she pinched the bridge of her nose in an effort to keep the looming headache at bay just a little longer, " you had never touched her before a couple days ago. Until then, she was just the mother who lost her child to you and nothing more?"

"Yes. She's still not anything more to me. It was just sex, nothing more than that. You're the only woman I want to be with Lindsay Monroe."

"How nice to know that you can so casually have 'just sex' with someone," she said with a glare at him, knowing her headache was bound to turn into a migraine soon.

"That's not what I meant and you know it!"

"Do I, Danny? Going from just being the grieving mother to the other woman is kind of a big leap there, don't you think?"

"That's not what happened! We did have some sort of emotional connection through this! She'd just lost her only child Lindsay! She needed someone to talk to; someone that cared about what she's going through and how she's feeling. That person was me. I was the last one to see Ruben alive! She trusted me with him, and I let her down. I had to be there for her! She needed me."

"What about me? You were there for me when I had to testify at my friends' murder trial. What changed? Oh, I get it. I needed you then. I was weak and needed someone who was there for me and me alone. Now that I'm stronger, you're free to move on to someone else who needs you now." Sure, she knew it was unfair when she said it, but that's how she felt. Rikki needed someone and Danny was there, just like he'd been there when she needed someone.

"Now wait just a damn minute! That's not fair and you know it! Nothing has changed about the way I feel for you. I wanted to be there for you then, and I still want to be here for you now! Christ, I love you Lindsay. Can't you see that? The only thing that's changed is that I love you. I just...I just...I only realized it after you told me how you felt. I've never been in love before and it scares he hell out of me," he finished, his brief anger fading as he watched the woman in front of him visibly deflate.

"I haven't either."

"Excuse me? What was that?"

"I've never been in love either. I don't trust people easily Danny. If I don't let people in, don't let them really get to know me, don't get attached, then I can't get hurt. I let you in. You saw me at me weakest. You know the worst part of me. I let myself get attached to you. I fell for you Danny, and you hurt me! You really, really hurt me," she quietly confessed, the stress and emotional turmoil of the past few weeks taking their toll on her.

"I know I hurt you, and I'm sorry. I won't do it again. Please, just give me the chance to prove that to you."

"I can't. I just can't."

"I know it will take work, but please, I need you," he knew he was begging and he really didn't care. He needed her in his life. He loved her. She represented everything that was good, beautiful, kind, forgiving and, strong in the world. He was just sorry he hadn't realized this before. He'd taken her for granted, and now he desperately wished for the chance to make it up to her.

"Leave."

"Linds. Montana, please."

"Please Danny. I just...I need to be alone."

His heart began to crumble. He had done this to her, had done this to them, and now he was reaping what he sewed. "Baby don't do this," his voice choked with tears as she closed the door on him and them.

"Danny, if you ever felt anything for me, you'll do what I ask. Please. Just...go," Her words were soft, and she refused to look him in the eye, refused to let him see the pain she was in.

Accepting that this was his castigation for breaking her trust, Danny leaned in and softly kissed her cheek. "Goodbye Lindsay. I love you. Remember that," and with those final words Danny turned towards the door and walked out of her apartment, and possibly her life.

Once the door clicked shut, the gut wrenching sob she'd been holding on to for the past hour ripped loose from her chest. He'd cheated on her and she'd sent him out of her life for it. She didn't know how she would pick up the pieces and move on, or even if she could. How was she supposed to work with him, knowing this mountain of hurt feelings and deep emotions would always be there? How could she scale that mountain now? Maybe it would have been better if he'd never told her.

Letting that thought digest itself, she ran to the bathroom where she lost the contents of her stomach.


	2. Chapter 2

Ch 2

Ch 2 Here Without You

Disclaimer: I don't CSI: NY or any of the central plots, places or characters therein. All those are the property of CBS and Bruckheimer productions. That stands to mean, please don't sue me. I'm just writing for fun, and as such, am not making any money off this. Trust me, what I make money for doing isn't near as fun as writing.

A/N: Thanks for all the wonderful reviews! I hope y'all will continue to read and bear with me as this journey continues! I can't guarantee that this won't get ugly at time, because, just like life, fiction can get ugly too. Enjoy this next chapter!!

A/N 2: I want to give a huge thanks to **DKM**, **Shelbers**, **lzytwner18**, **SallyJetson**, **kcaitlin**, and **Galen Kerr** for their support, discussion and prodding with this chapter!

* * *

_I'm here without you baby  
but you're still on my lonely mind  
I think about you baby  
and I dream about you all the time  
I'm here without you baby  
but you're still with me in my dreams  
And tonight it's only you and me_

_-3 Doors Down "Here Without You"_

"_Please. Just…go."_

Those were the last words she said to him before she sent him out of her life. Needing the time to think, Danny decided to walk for a bit and get some fresh air, well, at least as much fresh air as he could get with all the emissions floating around.

"Well, you've really done it now, Messer. She trusted you. You swore you would be different. You told her you would never hurt her," he berated himself as he wandered down the street, recalling the conversation they'd had after she'd gotten home from Montana. He'd driven them back to her place after picking up dinner, so they could talk and she could get some much-needed rest.

"_You tired," he asked, sitting next to her on the plush cream leather sofa and idly playing with her delicate fingers. _

"_A little, I guess," was the soft reply as she stared at the contrast of his large, rough hand as it encased the smaller smoothness of hers. _

"_You look like you haven't slept in weeks." _

_A non-committal shrug as she tucked a curl behind her ear was the answer. Still, her whiskey eyes remained fixed on their entwined hands. _

"_Talk to me Linds."_

"_I am talking to you."  
_

_Sighing, Danny gathered his thoughts before continuing, " You know what I mean. Something is wrong. You seem a bit…uneasy now. What is it?"_

_He could read her like a book these days. She knew something wasn't right with her. Things hadn't been right with her in many years. "It's just, well, it's just long and complicated." _

"_I'm working four to twelve tomorrow and I'm a good listener with complicated situations. Talking them out can do wonders at times. Remember who taught me that?" _

_She looked at him, a silent question in her tired eyes. _

"_You did. After Louie died, you told me that it might help me sort out my feelings about Louie and what happened to him if I talked about it. You told me if I wanted to talk, or needed anything, then you'd be there to listen anytime," he smiled at her tired features as he gently ran a hand through her hair. _

_Chuckling at the memory she commented, "I remember when I told you that. You came over that evening. You said you thought that maybe you'd give talking about it a try. We talked until one o'clock that morning." _

"_You were right. It helped me sort out a lot of things. I made peace with my brother that night. You gave me that chance Montana. Why not let me give you the chance to make peace with whatever is going on in that head of yours right now?" _

_She drew in a deep breath before diving in head first, and stating what was on her mind, "I just don't want you to hurt me." _

_Palpable shock, registered on his face. Hurt her? She didn't honestly think Danny would ever hurt her, did she? Striking Lindsay wasn't something that would ever occur to him and it made him nauseous to think that she had cause to be worried about such a thing. _

"_You would never hit me, Danny, I know that. That's not the kind of hurt I'm talking about," she stated looking right at him, having obviously read the expression on his face perfectly. Watching his face change with relief at her statement, she continued, " I don't want to get hurt emotionally. Trusting people is a big deal for me. I haven't really trusted anyone since the shooting, and I don't want it to turn out to be a mistake and blow up in my face. That's why I couldn't tell you about the murders before. I don't tell people about what happened. I don't trust them to not look at me like a victim, or a suspect. I've learned that if I don't trust people, don't let them in and get attached then it can't hurt when they can't hack it and leave me." _

_Danny nodded his agreement to her monologue. Lindsay Monroe was a lot like an onion, he was learning. Every time you peeled off one layer of leaves, there was always another layer waiting to be discovered. _

"_I won't hurt you. I promise, I won't hurt you. Ever," he promised sweetly. _

"_How can you be so sure? Things happen Danny. You get to know someone and come to find out they weren't who you thought they were…or discover you aren't who you always thought you were," she finished with a tinge of sadness in her voice. _

"_I can be so sure because I've been after you for over a year Lindsay. I've spent time this year figuring out who I am. Having you in my life makes sense. I'm not about to do anything to screw that up, ya hear?" _

_She smiled shyly and squeezed his hand in reply; confidence that he meant what he'd said. _

Walking into the bar, Danny plopped down on a stool near the end. She'd trusted him. He told her that he wouldn't hurt her. She believed him, and he'd meant every word he'd said to her at the time. Still, the fact remained that he had hurt her, and if he were honest with himself, he had to admit that he'd gone into it with full knowledge of what he was doing. He wasn't doing it with the outright intention of hurting Lindsay, mind you, but he did do it not caring about the consequences.

"_I don't care. I just want this hurt to go away." _

That was exactly what he'd told Rikki. He told her he didn't care. Instead of telling her he couldn't do this, that he had too much respect for Lindsay to cheat on her, he'd cheated on her. Instead of telling Rikki that he had too much respect for _her _to use her, and let her use him, he'd used and been used…willingly. As far as she had known, he and Lindsay had broken up sometime in December. While he hadn't actively told her that, when asked why Lindsay hadn't been around, Danny remained silent and non-committal. When she asked him if they'd broken up, he just shrugged and told her things were better this way.

Thinking about it turned his stomach. He'd lied to Rikki and dismissed his relationship with Lindsay. Why? To ponder that question, he needed a drink. Waving over the bartender, he ordered a scotch on the rocks. So consumed was he with his thoughts that he didn't even notice someone occupying the stool next to him.

"A pint of Guinness," the person said as the bartender dropped off Danny's scotch.

"Bad day?"

"Yeah, it really sucked."

"You want to talk about it?"

"No. I just want to forget it ever happened."

"Well, I can assure that I'm not going to let that happen, Dan. Why don't you just tell me what happened, maybe I can be of some help."

"You're not going to just go away and let me wallow in my misery, are you Flack," Danny spoke his friend's name for the first time, giving him a half-assed attempt at a smile.

"Nope," came the predictable reply, "now I notice that you're here all by your lonesome. Where's Monroe? She has a girls' night out planned with Stella or something?"

"I really messed things up with her. She's really upset with me."

"Of course she's upset with you Danny! When Ruben Sandoval died, you cast her aside like last years' Christmas present and started spending all your time either with Ruben's mom or wallowing in your own misery; presumably with Ruben's mom."

To this, Danny shot an angered look in his friends' direction as he motioned for a refill.

"Hey, if you're looking for someone to sugar coat what you've done, you better go find someone else to talk to because you're really barking up the wrong tree! Although, I wouldn't advise you to go to Mac or Stella."

"Stella would kill me for what I did," Danny mused somberly, as he nursed his second drink.

"Uh oh. What makes you say that," Don asked, knowing that whatever it was that Danny had done was worse than he'd first thought.

"I messed up, man! Flack, I fucked up so good here that if there was a king of the fuck up, I'd be it!"

"Well, this isn't going to be good," Flack drained his glass in anticipation of what Danny was going to tell him. He could tell it was bad, but he was sure it wasn't as bad as what Danny was saying, "so, tell Dr. Don what you did to make your girl blue."

"I cheated on her. I slept with Rikki Sandoval."

_Fuck. That's even worse than he made it sound. _

"You did what with who?"

"I slept with Rikki."

"You fucking idiot!"

"Real helpful there, Flack," Danny deadpanned, finishing his scotch and resisting the urge to order another one.

"Well, what did you expect me to say? Lindsay's my friend too! Shit, Messer, you cheated on her. You betrayed the girl you've practically pined away for since the day you met her! What the hell were you thinking? Does Linds even know about this," the taller man rattled off his questions, feeling torn between his two friends.

"I know she's your friend too. I don't expect you to take sides here Flack. I messed up and I know that now. She knows I messed up to. She's pretty upset about it. I think she hates me now."

"I didn't plan on picking sides, Dan. Just so we're clear, she's the one that was cheated on. She's the one that gave you space when she didn't know what else she could do to help you. She's the one that did her best to put her issues aside and be there for you if you wanted to talk. She's the one that's come to work on more than one occasion looking like shit because she was up most the night, no doubt worrying about you and trying to figure out how to go through to you. She's the one that lied to Mac for you when you went AWOL after Rikki stole you gun! After all that, she needs someone to be there for _her_! As her friend, if she needs someone to talk to, I'll be there to listen." It was then; that something he'd said dawned on him. "Oh shit, when she stole your gun, that's when this started, didn't it?"

"No! I mean yes. Well…sort of," Danny answered clearly getting frazzled as he was hit by the gravity of what he'd done.

"Sort of? I had no idea you could sort of cheat on someone. I figured you either cheated or you didn't. Is this sort of cheating anything like being sort of pregnant," Flack quipped bitterly, feeling a surge of anger for what Danny had done to Lindsay.

"Funny," Danny replied, looking into Flack's icy glare. "I didn't sleep with her that day. I took her home, made her a cup of tea and got her calmed down and then brought her to the station."

"And that's it?"

"And that's it! Nothing happened then, Flack!"

And the two sat there in silence until Danny spoke again.

"So, now what do I do?"

"You fix it."

"And how do you suggest I do that," Danny asked, exasperated at his friend's less than helpful manner.

"I don't know. I've never been in this situation before Dan. If I don't want to be with a woman anymore, I just tell her. End one thing before I start another; keeps things from getting messy," Flack knew this answer wasn't any help, but it was the truth. He hadn't been in this situation before. Sure he'd screwed up with a girl before, but not like this. The worse he could recall doing was the time he broke up with his girlfriend two days before the homecoming game in college. He'd sent her an instant message to break things off. Needless to say, she hadn't been anymore pleased by the instant message kiss off, than he was when copies of it were distributed around campus.

"Okay, well since I already made this mess, what should I do to clean it up?"

"Talk to Lindsay."

"I tired that. She doesn't want to talk," Danny stated matter-of-factly.

"Try again."

"Flack, I-"

"You tried that, I know, I know. Did you by any chance happen to try that right after your confession?"

Danny nodded somberly. Maybe going from, 'I cheated on you' straight to, 'lets talk and move on' wasn't such a good idea after all.

"Maybe she needs her space to digest what you told her. She just found out about this, don't you think it's asking a bit much for her to be willing to talk it out right away?"

"I suppose you have a point there. But what do I tell her when I talk to her?"

"The truth. You tell her the honest to God's truth about what you did. Be honest about where you're at with your relationship with her and what you want from it. Listen to what she has to say. Let her be angry. Give her time if she needs it. And, when she tells you to shut up, just do it! I got this one," Flack commented, throwing a few bills on the counter to cover his and Danny's drinks as he got up.

"Thanks man. How come you haven't got a girl? You know, with being so smart at this relationship thing and all."

"Never said I didn't," he replied cheekily as he walked out the door.

"Night man," Danny replied as he started walking towards his apartment.

"Night Dan," Flack replied hailing a taxi.

* * *

Walking into his building's elevator, Danny thought about what Flack had told him. He needed to be completely honest with Lindsay. She may not like what he had to say, but he had to take the chance that she would shut the door on them if he wanted them to have a fighting chance at a new start in the future. Just thinking about her rejecting him made his heart clench as he got out on his floor. Before he could be honest with Lindsay, he had to be honest with someone else. He had to own up to what he'd done and why he did it. He had to accept that Ruben's death still hurt, and he'd hurt Rikki by sleeping with her just to make his pain less. Knocking on a familiar door, he waited nervously for an answer.

"Danny?"

"Hi Rikki."

"Are you okay," she asked in her soft voice, noticing how fidgety he was.

"Um, can I come in, just for a minute? There's something I really need to say"

Smiling politely, she stepped aside and let him in, before closing the door behind him.

* * *

A/N 3: I know, I know, how dare I end a chapter like that! Or did I end it like that? I guess you'll have to wait, see and speculate about it!


	3. Chapter 3

Ch 3 I'm Gonna Find Another You

Disclaimer: I don't own it, nor do I claim to own it. If I did own it though, you would know! I do, however own Penny. She is a creation of my own warped imagination and I would appreciate it if you didn't steal her. Being from a warped mind, she needs to be handled with care.

A/N: I chose to handle Rikki the way I did in this chapter, because TPTB wrote her in such a way that it made it really easy for people to hate her and deem her the bad guy. I just wanted to humanize her a bit here.

A/N 2: I just want to give a huge shout out to **DKM **and **Shelbers** for all their guidance and things to consider in my developing Penny. You two totally rock!

* * *

_You take your sweaters  
You take your time  
You might have your reasons but you will never have my rhymes  
I'm gonna sing my way away from blue  
I'm gonna find another you_

_-John Mayer "I'm Gonna Find Another You"_

Walking into her apartment, Danny noticed boxes, a lot of them. Some of the boxes were packed and labeled while others were only partially filled or were still waiting to be filled. The bare walls and abundance of boxes spoke of a woman leaving the place of her loneliness, heartache, depression, regret and anger for a fresh start.

"You're moving," he stated unnecessarily.

"Yeah, my grandmother broke her hip a while back. I'm moving up to Connecticut to help my mom and sister take care of her."

"I'm sorry to hear that; about your grandma, I mean," he paused before continuing, "I'm not sorry you're going up there to help your sister out, but I am…shit, this isn't coming out like I'd planned," he blew out a frustrated breath.

"It's okay, Danny; I understand."

"Good. Listen, about what happened, what we did…"

"It was a mistake," she finished for him.

"Yeah, but it's my fault. I started the whole thing."

"Danny, what happened wasn't your fault. None of it was. Ruben's death wasn't your fault. That was an unfortunate accident. Our sleeping together wasn't your fault either. I didn't have to sleep with you, but I made the conscious choice to do so. I slept with you for purely selfish reasons. I didn't want to be alone anymore than you did, and I took advantage of that. I'm sorry for that."

"I didn't have to be alone then. I could have had her there, with me, where she belongs," he muttered quietly, taking a sudden interest in his feet.

"Who could have been there with you? Lindsay? I thought the two of you broke up."

"I never implicitly said that we'd broken up," Danny defended himself, starting to feel like even more of an ass for allowing Rikki to believe that when he knew damn well it was his fault Lindsay wasn't there with him. She would have been there in a heartbeat if he'd just told her he needed her that much he was sure of.

"Don't rationalize this Danny. You lied to me about Lindsay. Sure, you didn't tell me implicitly that the two of you broke up, but you didn't correct me either when I made the assumption that you did. You just told me it was for the best. You lied by omission," she scolded gently, but firmly.

"You're right. Lindsay's right too. I lied to you both. I swore I'd never hurt her and now she hates me. She doesn't believe a word I tell her now."

"So, she knows about this?"

"Yeah, I told her this evening. I couldn't live with myself knowing that I was lying to her. I wanted to get this off my chest so we can start over."

"So you wanted her to know this hoping that you could start over with a clean slate? Only now that she knows, she doesn't believe a thing you tell her," seeing how much Danny had let his guilt over Ruben's death affect his life, Rikki found herself getting a bit angry with the detective.

"She thinks everything I say to her is a lie, that everything I've ever said was a lie. She told me that when I went to Montana to be there when she needed someone to be there for her and her alone, was only about taking advantage of her emotions to be with her, that I didn't care the way I said I did and only wanted sex, and she says this is the same thing," Danny blew out a breath and waited for Rikki to respond.

"Is she right? I know we had sex for comfort. But with her, was she right about it? Did you have genuine feelings beyond pity for her, or did you just want to make her feel better?"

Danny just stared at the woman across from him as she wrapped plates and put them in a box. "No! I do care for her! Hell, I love her even! It's just that…well; Lindsay doesn't trust a lot of people. It took me over a year to get her to let me in, and now…"

"Then you need to talk to her."

"I tried that! She told me to leave. She's convinced that I've just used her the way I used you."

"Maybe it's time to really evaluate you feelings for her Danny. Look at the facts as they are now. You don't respect her…" seeing him getting ready to interrupt, "let me finish. You may think you respect her, but you don't show that by your actions. You cheated on her and then lied to her. That doesn't point towards respecting her."

"I've never been in a relationship like this before and it scares the hell out of me," Danny admitted for reasons even he didn't understand.

"Maybe that's why you sabotaged it," Came Rikki's matter-of-fact response.

"Sabotaged it?"

"Yeah, you lied to her about cheating on her. You confessed to cheating on her and lying about it. You cheated on her in the first place. What part of that says that you really care about her feelings?"

"I'm not very good at this emotional stuff, Rikki! I don't do candy, flowers, anniversaries and birthdays. Lindsay knows all that."

"That's still no excuse Danny. Not being good with emotional stuff is no excuse to lie to your girlfriend, cheat on her, neglect her and then you expect her to just start over? Danny, ever since my son died, you sent yourself hurtling down a self-destructive path riddled with guilt, depression, angst and general self-loathing. Frankly it's starting to really piss me the hell off!"

Her last statement was like a bucket of ice being thrown over his head. Did she really just say she was upset with him? What happened to it wasn't his fault?

Seeing him thinking this over, she quickly supplied her reasoning. " My son died Danny! I'll never get to see Ruben celebrate another birthday! I'll never have another parent/teacher conference or get to read another one of his report cards! I'll never get to scold him for being rambunctious in the house and knocking things over! I'll never see him grow up, graduate high school and college. I'll never see him get married or become a father. All of that has been taken away from me, but look at me," Needing another moment to collect herself before continuing she drew in a few shaky breathes before continuing. "Look at me Danny. I won't get to see any of that. Nothing in my life is ever going to be the same, but I'm trying to move on! He's my son, and yet you are the one that's letting your emotions takes control of your life! You aren't making the decisions anymore, Danny! My child died, and yet you are the one that's self destructing," she finished, the wind having been taken out of her sails.

Danny just stood there, pondering what she'd said. Was he really that blinded by his emotions? Has he really been grieving more outwardly than her?

"I know I takes two to tango here Danny. I was wrong in sleeping with you for comfort. I know now that the pain didn't go away; it just got pushed aside for a few minutes; like I was getting my fix. In all that I hurt an innocent person and so did you. Lindsay didn't ask to be hurt in any of this," her voice taking on a tone laced with sympathy for the other woman.

"Okay, now what?"

"Now, I finish packing and you go home and try to get some sleep; you look like you could use it," she joked lightly, hoping to lighten the mood a bit.

"What about Ruben?"

"What about Ruben, Danny? He's another angel in heaven now watching over us. You have to figure out a way to accept that his death was not your fault and then you need to figure out a way to put your life back together. The mess you've made of your life Danny, that is your fault, no one else's."

"I'm sorry…for everything."

"Okay, first off, you need to stop saying you're sorry. You really want to make all this up to me?" Danny nodded in response. "Start putting your life back together. You're a very sweet man Danny, don't let that get lost in all your grief."

"I better go."

"Yeah, you better, I have a lot of packing to do and you have a lot of thinking to do."

"Goodbye Rikki."

"Goodbye Danny."

* * *

"Come on, answer the phone," Lindsay practically pleaded as she listened to the fourth ring. Right now, she was in desperate need of some perspective on things. Her mind was so muddled, that she could hardly think straight. In those times, she often turned to her best friend from college, Penny.

"B.F.F Lost and Found. Long lost B.F.F at your service," the woman answered, twirling a lock of hair around her finger and swirling back and forth on a desk chair.

"Hey Penny. I know it's been while," she answered a bit somberly.

"Uh oh. Something's wrong. It's that guy isn't it," Penny always had a great intuition about her.

"Danny, that's his name."

"Right, Danny. So, what about Danny has you so down?"

"Everything. Nothing. I don't know," she answered grabbing a pint of Chunky Monkey out of the freezer and plopping herself down on her bed.

"I don't believe it. If you felt the need to call your personal relationship guru you must have an idea of what's wrong. Now tell me, did he do something? Has he gone all emo on you; because let's face it hon, you and emo don't mix."

"Relationship guru my ass," Lindsay muttered around a spoonful of ice cream, loud enough for her friend to hear, "when was the last time you even had a one night stand, let alone a real relationship?"

"Well, Lin, I'll have you know that I met a very nice man named Jacob Quimby at my last art showing," the raven haired woman informed, sounding awful proud of herself.

"And how was the last showing? Is the gallery still going well," Lindsay prodded, not really sure if she wanted to talk about Danny anymore when this was a much more enjoyable topic.

"I sold nine pieces last showing! The gallery is going great, I'm really happy I decided to do this. But you didn't call to talk about me, so tell me, what happened with Danny?"

Lindsay sighed, she should have known better to hope that her friend wouldn't bring up the original reason for her call, "Remember back in December, when I told you about the neighbor boy of his getting killed?"

"Yeah, you said they were pretty close."

"From what I understand, they were. When Danny found out that he'd been killed, he changed."

"Grieving Lin, that's what it was. You know more about loss, trauma and grieving than anyone should have a right to."

"No, no, I know that. This wasn't just grieving though. He felt guilty. I understand that too, so don't start with me on that Pen, but it was different. He started to spend all his time with the mother, Rikki," Lindsay cringed when she said her name. Apparently, Penny heard the cringe over the line.

"I'm not going to like where you're going with this, am I?"

"He forgot my birthday. Now it's not like that's some huge deal or anything, but he blew it off and said guys didn't remember stuff like that. They remembered sports stats and steak sides."

"Asshole."

"That's not the worst of it. I know he's been really upset over everything lately, and has needed his space to grieve, so I gave it to him. Well, a few days ago, Stella's apartment caught fire and burned down. It was arson so the whole team was at the scene," Lindsay paused for breath allowing the other woman to jump in with the end of the sentence.

"Except for Danny."

"Right. He had the night off, and was working the afternoon shift the next day. He's been working a lot of overtime, I guess to make up to Mac for blowing off work the day Rikki stole his gun."

"She did WHAT?"

"She stole his gun to go after the person she felt was responsible for her son's death. Instead of calling it in, Danny took it upon himself to go after her himself. In short order, his best friend found him while he was still looking for her, and then he found him again after Danny had found Rikki. She'd found who she wanted to and had the gun pointed at him. Danny got her to give it to him, and he took her…somewhere to get her calmed down before he brought her into the station," she explained the story as quickly as possible to keep her mind from wandering into places she didn't need it to go about that day.

"Isn't it a standard thing to arrest someone on the spot for that?"

"It is."

"How long were they gone before he brought her in," Penny definitely didn't like where this was going.

"About an hour, is what Flack told me."

"That's a big gap. What did he say happened in that hour?"

"That's just it, Penny, I don't know what happened! Although, given what he told me a little while ago, I think I have an idea," Lindsay's voice broke at the end.

"What did he tell you?"

"He's been trying to get me to talk to him since Stella's apartment burned down, but until tonight I didn't want to. I had a bad feeling about it, and I just couldn't deal with it then. You see, that day, I called him up and invited him to lunch. He said he'd had some errands to run and couldn't do it. I had a feeling something wasn't right, but he said he was fine and would see me later, so I let it slide." Steeling herself to actually say the words, Lindsay took several slow deep breaths and then just said it, "Well, he tried to act like everything was fine up until the next afternoon and when I more or less ignored him that day, he acted like I was the problem! He even asked me if this was about the birthday or him not feeling like going to lunch the previous day. I didn't know what else to do, so I laid it all out on the table, I told him how I felt," she finished on a defeated sigh.

"And how do you feel," Penny hadn't even met this Danny guy, but already she had the urge to slap him for making her friend feel like this. She and Lindsay had a lot in common as far as how they related to other people and being labeled outcasts by other teenagers, and she always tried to protect Lindsay from people who treated her like that, and Lindsay had done the same for her.

"I told him I'd fallen in love with him, and now I had to figure out how to let that go."

"That's a big step for you Lin. You never let your emotions get involved in your relationships. What did he say when you told him?"

"Nothing. He just stared like he couldn't believe what I had said. He didn't even acknowledge it at all. He just sat there and kept his mouth shut," she angrily swiped at the lone tear rolling down her cheek.

"I see. What happened this evening?"

"He came over and blurted out that he'd slept with Rikki and that he was sorry and could I forgive him so we could start over."

"You should dump him," Penny stated matter-of-factly holding the end of a rubber chicken shaped pen between her teeth as she stared at the different painted tiles that made up the ceiling in her home office, still swiveling in the chair. Back and forth. Back and forth.

"Penny, I don't want to break up with him," Lindsay half whined, at her friends' completely unhelpful advice. She knew this was how the conversation would go, but still she called. She must really love Penny to put up with this.

"Then forgive him," another matter-of-fact answer.

"You're absolutely no help, you know that?"

"That's my job," she laughed. "In all seriousness though, I can't solve this for you. I'm not in your head, and for that I am eternally grateful, and I don't know this Danny guy or the specifics of the situation, but you do."

"First off, I resent that! Inside my head is not a scary place to be," Lindsay sat up and tossed the empty ice cream container in the trashcan, "secondly, I know you don't know him, why do you think I need your advice?" The two women always did this when they talked, they always had. Subtly poking fun at each other and joking served to cut the tension sometimes.

"Remember Princess Pickle Bunny?"

"It was the end of finals week, and there was tequila involved," the two women shared a laugh over that particular college exploit.

"Seriously though, Penny. What should I do here? I know I'm in love with him, but I just don't know if I can move past this."

"Take you time. Be honest with him. Tell him exactly what you're thinking and what you need him to do if he wants half a chance of ever being with you again."

"That's just it though. I'm afraid if I'm honest with him about what I'm thinking right now, he'll just say forget it and move on to someone less difficult," Lindsay let out an exasperated sigh as she threw her pillows on the floor, in an effort to find the remote control.

"Okay, you are not a difficult person Lindsay Monroe; at least not any more difficult than yours truly, and if he can't take the honesty from you and be honest with you, than maybe he doesn't deserve the wonderfulness that is you," Lindsay's eccentric friend declared, trading her pen for a slinky.

"You're the most difficult person I know, but I guess you do have a point. I just don't know if it's worth the possible heartache to tell him what I'm feeling right now,"

"Well that depends on what you're feeling right now."

"I feel like he still isn't being completely honest with me. He said that they had an emotional connection before they slept together, and he copped to that one time, but I feel like this wasn't just a one-time thing like he says. It's just, lately with how Danny's been, not caring about anyone or anything beyond his own guilt, grief and remorse and making Rikki feel better, and I think even more it's about making himself feel better. I don't know what to think anymore.

Leaning back in her chair and making imaginary shapes out of the purple and green dots on one tile, "let me ask you something then. If you don't tell him how you're feeling, would you be able to get back with him without knowing the answer to that question or would it always be there a nagging doubt in the back of your head?"

Worrying her lip for a minute, Lindsay pondered the thought. Could she live with that? If she forgave Danny without knowing, every time they had sex, would she wonder if he'd made her scream his name that many times? Would she wonder if he whispered sweet nothings in Italian as she came back to earth? Realizing her answer she confidently said, "No. I can't be with him if I still have doubts or questions."

"Okay, then let me ask you something else," Now she held the tip of her cherry and black colored glasses against her lip as she spoke, "if you ask the question and he answers it, would you be able to get back with him, even if the answer is that he has slept with her more than once?"

She hated Penny sometimes. She always asked the hard questions that Lindsay didn't seem to have the confidence to approach. "I don't know," she finally decided after a few moments of hard thinking.

"Well, I think that sets out what you need to do a lot clearer don't you?"

"Not really. I'm still in the same place I was an hour ago when I called you."

"What place is that," Penny genuinely felt for her friend. She would like nothing more than to be able to drive out from Boston, but she simply had too much that needed to be done, and she didn't want to rush a visit with Lindsay. It had been far to long since they'd seen each other and they had a lot of catching up to do. No, that visit would have to wait.

Lindsay answering the question broke into her thoughts, "Confused, sad, lonely. I don't know what to do now. I've never been in love before, and the first time it happens, the guy's response is that he cheated on me. My life is just some huge cosmic joke, isn't it?"

From the tone in her voice, Penny could almost visualize Lindsay sitting there feeling very put out with the world right now. "Okay, so you laid your heart out there and he essentially walked on it. What do you think you should do now?"

"Never let myself fall for anyone again."

"Well," Penny hadn't wanted to hear that answer, but knowing how insecure Lindsay could really be despite the font she put up for the world at large, she had expected it was a possibility, "you could do that, I guess, but some facts still remain what they are now Lindsay."

"What facts are those?"

"You've fallen in love with him. That's a fact. You've admitted it to yourself, to him, and to me. That isn't something that's just going to go away. It is what it is. The question is, what are you going to do with it?"

"I told him I had to figure out how to let that go, and I guess that now I really do."

"Yes, you could, but you could also hear him out. Ask any questions you can think of. Tell him the things you want him to know. If you're angry with him, tell him. If you hate what he's done, tell him. If you've felt completely alone and disvalued in this relationship while he's off frolicking with the grieving mother, tell him. You think about what it would take to salvage at least your friendship, and if there is any hope of building up something more, and then you tell him that as well. Listen to what he has to say, and don't kill him if you don't like the answers. Remember Lin, you're in New York, the greatest city in the world and there are oodles of potential guys out there, but you owe it to yourself to see if this one has any potential to work before you write him off. Don't work on getting things back on track from where you were at, but work on starting fresh from where you are at right now."

"Thanks Penny. You really are a great friend. I'm glad I called you. I think I have a better idea of where to go from here," Lindsay spoke with the smile coming through the line loud and clear.

"No problem toots. It's all part of the B.F.F. service. Now you should be receiving your therapy bill in the mail in seven to ten business days. I take cash, checks and all major credit cards; but I get to keep the credit card."

"Good night, Penny," Lindsay said with a chuckle as she situated herself under the purple duvet.

"Toodles," Penny chirped as she spun around in her chair before hanging up the phone.

Lindsay stared at the phone for a moment before turning off the light. Yes, Penny certainly was one of a kind. Perhaps that's why Lindsay liked her so much. The two women seemed so opposite of each other, yet when you put them together, they fit perfectly, like two puzzle pieces. Maybe Penny was right about her advice. Lindsay decided she would think more on it tomorrow. For now, she needed sleep. A good night's rest might help her put this in perspective.


	4. Chapter 4

Ch 4 Where Ever You Will Go

Disclaimer: I don't own it. I never have owned it. I never will own it. I own a cat of questionable sanity, so, if you sue me she's all you'll be getting!

* * *

_And maybe, I'll find out_

_A way to make it back someday_

_To watch you, to guide you_

_Through the darkest of your days_

_If a great wave shall fall and fall upon us all_

_Then I hope there's someone out there_

_Who can bring me back to you_

_-The Calling "Where Ever You Will Go"_

"Lindsay, we really need to talk about this," Danny had finally cornered her in the locker room at the end of shift.

"I know we do Danny, I know, It's just that..." she trailed off, not really sure what to say.

"I never thought we'd be having this conversation either," he admitted with an inner twinge of pain, knowing that it was because of him and his selfish actions that this was happening in the first place.

"But we are," her voice was cool and professional.

"So how about we meet at my place in say," he consulted his watch, "two hours?"

_His place? How could he possibly expect me to go over there now? _

"Actually, I think it would be better if we met at my place," she countered hoping he would know why she couldn't be in his apartment right now.

"Yeah, okay. If that's the only way I can get you to talk to me, then I'll meet you at your place in a couple of hours. That sound okay?"

"I'll see you about seven o'clock then," she said with a polite smile and walked off, intent on being able to get home in enough time to gather her thoughts in peace before Danny arrived. It had been over a week since he had admitted his infidelity, and she had spent a lot of that time really thinking about what she wanted to do now. If she had done half as much thinking as she suspected she had, her phone bill would reflect that.

_'Thank god for Penny,' _she thought as she passed up the chance to be packed in a subway car like a sardine, in favor of hailing a cab. The two women had, sometimes, spent hours on the phone working out different scenarios and weighing the pros and cons of Lindsay trying to salvage, at least, their friendship versus them just being co-workers. She remembered Penny had laughed at how her organized nature came out, even in matters of the heart, she hoped that her organization would pay off tonight and things wouldn't end up a total disaster between them.

* * *

"Meet at my place," Danny muttered in a self deprecating tone. At the time, he'd been so desperate to talk to her about their situation, that he hadn't even given a seconds rumination to the fact that she probably didn't want to be in his place right now.

_She probably wants to be as far away from here as possible now. As far away from me as possible, _he thought looking around his apartment. As he walked into his bedroom to change, his eyes fell on the bed.

"Of course she'd rather meet at her place. I didn't betray her trust and sleep with another woman in her bed," he trailed off his musings, wondering if he should get rid of that bed or just move.

_Like that's gonna work Messer. Sure, you can get rid of the bed, burn the sheets and, move to Queens; but you'll still be the man that broke her heart._

"Nothing can ever change the fact that I made her cry," he somberly reminded himself as he grabbed his jacket again and hurried out the door to catch a cab to her place. Tonight would be a make it or break it moment in their relationship. He just prayed to whatever god was out there, that he hadn't fucked things up so bad that they were permanently broken.

* * *

The doorbell rang, causing Lindsay to practically jump out of her skin. As she checked herself over once more in the full length mirror that hung on her closet door she muttered to herself, "I don't want to look good for him, I just want to make sure I don't look like total shit," and she didn't. "Okay, here it goes," she took a deep breath and hurried to the door as the bell rang again.

"Hey," Lindsay said, uncharacteristically shy for her, as she opened the door for him.

"Hey," he replied in kind, accepting her silent invitation and stepping over the threshold. Following her into the small living room, his mind was suddenly flooded with images of the last time he had been here. God, he hoped tonight would end differently than that had. If she told him wearing a grass skirt and coconut bra to work for a week would make everything better, he'd do it, Flack and Hawkes be damned!

"You want something to drink," her sweet voice broke him out of his reverie. God how he loved that voice. That voice, sometimes soft and sweet, other times firm and serious. He loved hearing that voice first thing in the morning, still a bit hoarse from screaming and moaning his name the night before. He swore if he had the chance to hear that voice again, he would do whatever it took. He would always do whatever it took to make Lindsay feel happy, loved and protected. He just hoped she'd afford him another chance to correct his horrendous mistake.

"Uh, yeah, whatever you have will be fine."

Relieved that he'd accepted her offer of a drink, and left it up to her what to bring him, Lindsay nodded her understanding and quickly retreated in the kitchen where she took her time getting the drinks to collect her thoughts and try to remember the advice Penny had given her not an hour earlier.

"_Alright twitch, when is he coming over," Penny asked, using the nick name she'd given Lindsay their freshman year, given her tendency for always moving._

"_Gosh, I haven't heard that name in ages," Lindsay laughed lightly before getting back to the original point of the conversation, "he's supposed to be here in about forty-five minutes or so...as long as he doesn't blow me off to go play with Rikki," she muttered. _

"_Now, why in the world would he do that? He knows you want to talk about the state of your relationship and that's the point of this whole meeting. Besides, didn't you tell me he said she was moving," she queried as she slipped on a pair of leopard print pumps in preparation for her second date with Jacob._

"_Yeah, he told me she was moving out of state, but he's lied to me before, when he was having the affair. Told me he had to go to the bank, dry cleaners, and get his bike fixed at the shop. She was there when he told me all that. He told me all that and then hung up and had another round of sex with her. When I confronted him about pushing me away, he tried to relegate me to some clingy needy girlfriend who was making a big deal out of nothing," she sighed, grabbing a container of Cherry Garcia ice cream out of the fridge and began to indulge in comfort eating. She'd been doing that a lot lately. _

"_And how did you respond to that," Penny easily slipped into counselor mode now. Heaven knows she'd seen more than her fair share of them, since she watched her grandmother fight, and ultimately lose, her twenty year battle with Huntington's Disease; when Penny was only 11 years old. _

_Lindsay thought about her answer for a moment, "I just shrugged and said okay. I'm not quiet sure what to say to that in this type of situation Penny. I've never been in a relationship like this before. I'm so used to keeping my guard up around people that, when I let it down for Danny and allowed myself to trust him, I guess I just shut down emotionally when he tossed me aside in favor of being with her."_

"_Let me ask you something here. I think I already know the answer, but I need to hear you say it to be sure I'm thinking along the right lines of what issues are causing you a problem. When Danny stopped talking to you, just to talk; stopped asking you to do things when you both weren't working, stopped asking you to stay over night at his place and him staying over night at your place, Started ignoring your phone calls and basically stopped acknowledging you at, and outside of work unless it was work related, how did that make you feel," Penny quickly sent Jacob an email to his Blackberry informing him that she was helping a dear friend through a relationship crisis and she might be running a bit late._

"_It made me feel like total crap Penny! I felt like he'd abandoned me for something better with Rikki. I felt just like I did back in high school when no one would talk to me or try and be my friend because I was that weird kid from the diner. I felt like there was something wrong with me. I'm not good enough for him, or he was expecting something more than what he got when he started dating me," Lindsay swiped a tear from her cheek, not wanting to look like she'd been crying when Danny arrived. _

"_Then tell him."_

"_Excuse me? Tell him? Tell him what exactly? Tell him that he's made me cry myself to sleep more in the past six months, than I have since I left everything I've ever known back in Montana for my dream career? Am I supposed to tell him that I feel like he doesn't care about me as much as he says he does? Are you saying that I should tell him that when it comes to the priorities in his life it seems like I'm last on his list? That I used to feel like I mattered to him, but then Ruben died and suddenly Rikki is the one that matters and I'm left out in the cold, feeling like what we had wasn't even important enough for him to break things off with me before he jumped into bed with her," Lindsay finally stopped talking as she afforded herself permission to let all the emotions she'd just been through come out in the form of quiet weeping._

_Penny had never met this Danny jerk, but already she hated him. Lindsay had been through so much in her life and now here this guy was; the guy who flew half way across the country just to be with the Montana native when she needed someone, breaking her heart all because he couldn't, or wouldn't, break things off with Lindsay before taking an other woman intimately to his bed; because it made them both feel good._

"_See, all that there that you just told me, you need to say it to him too. Now, I know, I know you have worked so unbelievably hard for half of your fucking life to work through your trust and abandonment issues, but babe, I hate to break it to you that you're going to have to work through all those issues again."_

"_I knew I should never have trusted him with my heart. The techs in the lab all said he had a reputation for not being the commitment type, and letting him get too close, would only result in me getting hurt. Did I listen to them? No. I listened to my heart and now he's gone and broken it," while she had spent a lot of time being angry these past ten days, her emotional barometer had randomly switched from an angry reading, to ones of loneliness, loss, sadness, numbness, and at times, devastation._

"_Lin, the only way he is ever going to really understand the gravity of what he did to you emotionally, is if you tell him. You need to tell him how what he did; the lies, ignoring you, forgetting your birthday, the arrogance which he used to defend his actions and try to make you the bad guy, his professed love on the heels of telling you he's cheated on you; how it made you feel. I mean how it really made you feel. He hasn't sugar coated anything for you, so don't do it for him."_

"_What if telling him how much he hurt me only makes things worse? What if he decides that he doesn't even want to try and work on this because of all the hurt? What if he does want to work it out, but I can't ever trust him again," she rattled off her worst fears, as if she were gearing up for a Presidential debate. _

"_Okay, first off, you need to stop talking and breathe! Now, all those things are possible, but if he really, truly cares about you, then he'll understand what emotional place you're coming from and he'll understand. After all, he does understand that the two of you wouldn't even be in this situation if he had been using the big brain in the first place, right," the other woman quipped sarcastically as she sat her purse and jacket by the door._

"_He knows he's the cause of all this turmoil, but I wouldn't go and say he was using his other head, he was just upset over Ruben, and the guilt got the best of him, I guess," for some reason, she felt a need to defend what he'd done as an act that wasn't as unthinking as Penny made it sound._

"_Don't rationalize sweetie. He cheated on you. The reason he did it is a moot point. The fact is, he did it, and now you have to figure out how to heal. You're a fantastic woman, Lindsay. Don't let those old trust and abandonment issues slither back in and take control of your head and your heart. Okay," Penny finished what she needed to say and she knew that Lindsay needed to get herself prepared for the talk. _

"_Okay, I'll keep an open mind tonight and not make any major decisions about us until I've had time to really think it over."_

"_And?" _

_  
"And I'll be completely honest about my feelings, and ask all the questions I need to ask to be able to move on, no matter how much the answers might hurt."_

"_That's my girl! Okay, sweetie, I have to go meet Jacob for dinner, and you need to give yourself a few minutes to relax before Danny gets there."_

"_Okay, thanks again Pen. You really are a life saver, you know that?" _

"_I know. That is why my friendship services are in such high demand," she joked lightly, causing Lindsay to laugh._

"_Good night Penny. Have fun with Jacob!" _

"_'Night Lin. Good luck with Danny tonight, and remember what we talked about. Infidelity in a relationship is a big deal, so don't expect any miracles over night. Getting through this kind of thing takes a lot of time, work, patience, and it will have it's ups and downs." _

* * *

Realizing just how long she'd been in her reverie, Lindsay quickly hurried back into the living room with two glasses of Cream Soda.

"I'm sorry that took so long," she apologized as she sat his glass on the coaster in front of him, and then retreated to the recliner across the room and made herself as comfortable as one could, amidst such an uncomfortable situation. The two remained silent, sipping their drinks and avoiding eye contact with each other, until Lindsay spoke up.

"Danny, why are you here?"

The slight edge to her voice made him more nervous than he already was. She was still feeling the hurt and betrayal of what he had done, and her voice carried that message to him loud and clear. He'd fucked up big time, and for the first time, he had no clue how to fix it. In the past, if he hurt a woman he was seeing, it was no big deal, he'd just cut ties with her and go on with his life while he waited for the next woman to come around. Lindsay was different though. He didn't want to cut ties with her. He loved her. He wanted her to know he loved her. He wanted her to know how sorry he was. He wanted her to forgive him. And maybe, just maybe, one day he would want to tie the knot with her.

"I know I've messed up, and I want to fix that. I want us, to start being us again," he admitted, hoping that she wanted the same things.

Sighing deeply, she looked up to the ceiling, before meeting his eyes and speaking, "Yeah, you have messed up, Danny. Messed up doesn't even begin to cover what you've done, and you think you can fix it? You treated me like shit because you felt like shit, and now that Rikki made you feel better, you want to fix it, so we can be an 'us' again?! Is that what you said? Did I hear that right?"

"I know I hurt you and I'm sorry Lindsay. God, I'm so damn sorry! If I could take it back I would, but I can't," he answered her, tears catching in his throat. Now, he knew he really hurt her. Hell, he'd known he hurt her when he was doing it, but it was only now, hearing her state that he made her feel like shit because he felt like it, did the weight of his responsibility for their current situation really hit him.

"You know you hurt me? Do you Danny? Do you really know how much you hurt me; what I've been going through for the past four months trying to give you your space, but be available for you to come to me? Do you have any idea how much it hurt when Flack told me that Rikki had stolen your gun, and instead of calling it in, you ignored my phone calls and went to find her? And then the icing on the cake was when he told me he'd found you right when you found her! You didn't take her to the station right away; no, you took her to get her calmed down first. An hour Danny. There was an hour in between the time you took her out of the alley and turned her in at the precinct. Do you have any idea what you could have done in an hour? Plenty! Hell, thinking of all the things we've been able to squeeze into an hour sickens me when I think that you could have been doing those things with her during that time," she finished, suddenly resigned to hearing him confirm her worst fears about that day.

"We didn't do anything. I took her home, made her a cup of tea and then brought her into the station. Jess took her back to be booked, and I went to a bar and got plowed, end of story."

"I don't believe you," she stated boldly, hoping Penny's advice to just lay it all out was the right thing to do.

"Don't believe me? What the hell do you want me to tell you Linds? Do you want me to tell you I took her back to my place ripped off her clothes and fucked her against the wall? Is that it, huh?"

"Danny...I just...I...I...I just want you to be completely honest with me and I don't feel like I'm getting that from you."

"You think I'm lying now? All the sudden, I'm the kind of guy that would lie to you? Hell, since I met you, all I've ever done is be honest with you and exercised extreme patience while you worked out your issues, and now you think I'm lying to you about something this important?"

Lindsay had had it. He actually expected to come in here, apologize for what he did, and for her to forgive him, no questions asked. That was not something she could do. Getting up and pacing agitatedly, she spoke, "you know what? You're right. How could I possibly think you're lying to me now? I mean, you've been so damn honest with me through this whole thing Messer! Hell, not being able to meet me for lunch because you had to go to the bank, the dry cleaners, and take your bike to the shop were all legitimate reasons. Only problem is, I didn't consider you were getting your bike tuned up in her garage. My bad."

Danny just stared. He'd really hurt her, and right now, that hurt was manifesting itself as anger and sarcasm. As much as she tried to make her self blame sound sarcastic, Danny knew better. He knew she had a habit of taking responsibility for things that really weren't her fault.

_Just like me._

Realizing that they were going to have to work from where they were at right now, Danny sighed and began to speak, "Linds, listen," he started before she abruptly cut him off.

"No Danny! You listen! I've heard everything you've said loud and clear and now it's time for you to hear me out," forget frustrated, Lindsay was down right pissed off now, and Danny sure as hell was going to hear about it. "Every time you've ignored a phone call from me; every time you pass me in the hallway without so much as a wave; every time you rush into, or out of, work early enough or late enough to not risk seeing me, you send a very clear message to me! You let me know, every time you do those things that I don't mean a damn thing to you! It was all just a game to you! As long as you were feeling good and making your pain go away; you didn't give a crap about my pain!" Lindsay had finally run out of steam, and in spite of herself, she felt the torrent of tears cascade down her cheeks, as the months of pain, frustration and rejection made themselves known to Danny in words and actions.

Shocked by her outburst, Danny sat, dumbstruck. He'd seen Lindsay angry before, but never had he seen her angry enough to cry, and knowing the tears were because of him was almost too much for him to take.

_'Way to go Messer, you selfish ass! You've managed to get so wrapped up in your own misplaced guilt and anger, that you effectively convinced her she doesn't matter worth a lick to you! Good luck fixing this one Danny boy,' _the voice in his head that always told him how much he'd fucked up, crowed loudly as he watched Lindsay sit back in the chair, face buried in her hands as she tried desperately to reign her emotions back in.

"Lindsay," he started, moving to kneel in front of her, "you do matter to me. You matter a lot to me, I'm just sorry it took me screwing things up this badly and making you cry to realize it," his voice choked with emotion as he gingerly placed his hands on her knees to test her reaction.

"I wish I could believe that, Danny. I really do," she sniffled, wiping the dampness off her cheeks, as broken-hearted whiskey eyes met sorrowful cerulean ones.

"But you don't."

"No," she shook her head sadly, "I'm sorry."

It was a feeling of loss for the both of them. She wanted to believe Danny. She wanted to let him love her; as much as he wanted to do so, but she just couldn't. Not now. Maybe not ever again.

"Now what?"

"Let me go. Just...let me go, Danny."

"Lindsay. Montana," he started, but no other words followed. He knew that, right now, there wasn't anything he could say to fix this.

"Danny," she whispered on a quiet sob, as she got up and headed towards the door, him following, trying to keep his own set of tears at bay.

Walking to the door, they both felt it. No longer were they the Messer and Montana they used to be. Now, they were just Danny and Lindsay. It was as simple and complicated as that.

"Goodbye Danny," she felt her heart shatter even more, with the utterance of those two words. So simple, yet so powerful and final in nature.

"Goodbye Lindsay," he whispered in kind as a few tears slipped silently, down his cheeks. Caressing her cheek one final time, Danny turned and headed for the stairs.

Watching until he was out of sight, Lindsay remembered her words of a couple weeks prior: _"I'm mad at myself because I've fallen in love with you, and now, I have to figure out...how to let that go." _

"I'll never let that go," she whispered, closing the front door and sliding down the dark wood , dissolving into tears.

One day, maybe one day they could work their way back together. Back to being a team. Back to being a couple. But right now, as Lindsay opened the door to let Danny out, they were just two people, fighting against the rough currents of the river infidelity, trying to make it to the shore.

* * *

A/N: I am a D/L shipper; I swear! Please don't shoot me!


	5. Chapter 5

Ch 5 You've Got A Friend

Disclaimer: I don't own CSI:NY or any of it's characters.

* * *

_When you're down and troubled_

_And you need a helping hand_

_And nothing, whoa nothing is going right_

_Close your eyes and think of me_

_And soon I will be there_

_To brighten up even your darkest nights_

_-James Taylor "You've Got A Friend_

It was official, she wasn't going to be getting anything done today. Lindsay had been at work for over two hours, and it seemed that all the murderers in the city had declared this particular rainy Friday a murder free holiday. That being the case, Lindsay was stuck at her desk catching up on the mountain of paperwork, that seemed to be growing faster than a rabbit population.

"What's the use," she grumbled running a hand through her short, brown locks as she watched the rain outside her window. Today, it was one month since her break up with Danny. She knew working with him would be difficult in the beginning, but she hoped that they would soon fall into some sort of routine, and they had, but working with him only seemed to get harder instead of easier as time went on. She knew that the situation with Danny was affecting her, but she hoped that no one had noticed. That hope was blown straight to hell when Mac called her into his office at the end of shift a couple days ago.

"_You wanted to see me," she asked quietly as she peeked her head into his office where he was doing paperwork._

"_Have a seat Lindsay," he gestured to a chair in front of him and set his paperwork aside in a neat pile, before coming around to sit on the edge of his desk in front of her. "I'm worried about you," he began. _

"_Mac, I'm fine." _

"_No Lindsay, you're not fine. Something is bothering you, and I just want to know if there is anything I can do to help?" _

_His concern was touching and it caught her off guard slightly. Recovering quickly, she plastered on a fake smile and replied, "It's just been a particularly stressful few weeks is all. Really, I'm okay."_

_Keeping his expression neutral, her superior nodded thoughtfully as he formulated his response, "do you think you're starting to get burnt out by all the work? I know you've been doing this line of work for over five years and you've also been putting in a lot of overtime lately. Maybe it's time you took a break for a bit; went out to Colorado to visit your brother and Mom for a few weeks. I bet they'd love to see you."_

"_Mac, I appreciate your concern, really, but I'm not suffering from burn out. My life is just a bit stressful and the cases have been kind of weird, you have to admit, and I guess focusing hasn't been my strongest suit lately," she finished, noticing that her quip about the cases had Mac smiling slightly. _

"_I see your point. The cases have been a bit bizarre lately. I don't mean to pry, but does the stress in your personal life have anything to do with what is or isn't going on with you and Danny?" _

"_There's nothing going on between me and Danny," she said a bit more defensively than she wanted to, "at least not anymore," she finished so quietly her boss barely heard her. _

"_Oh. I'm sorry to hear that." _

_She nodded slightly, "I know I'm not supposed to let my personal life interfere with my work and I'm sorry if it has. Getting involved with a co-worker was a bad idea and I realize that now. Don't worry, I'll stay focused and be more diligent about leaving my problems at home." _

"_Contrary to what most people think around here, the physical, emotional and mental health of my team is just as, if not more, important to me as the integrity of this lab. If there's something that's keeping you from functioning at your best and I can do something to help your situation, I'd like to. You're good at what you do Lindsay. You're very thorough, with an eye for detail and the ability to think quickly on your feet. You keep everyone, me included, on their toes with your sharp mind and quick wit. I'd hate to see you lose the very things that make you such a good CSI," he finished trying to gauge her reaction to what he'd just said. She seemed to realize this, as she tried to keep a neutral face, but Mac could see in her eyes that she was thinking over what he had said. _

"_Thanks Mac, that means a lot coming from you. I'm okay though, you don't need to worry about me. I just need to go home and get a good nights rest. I'll be on top of things tomorrow, I promise," she finished with a genuine smile gracing her delicate features, transforming her from her naturally cute state into a pretty young woman. _

_Mirroring her smile, "alright, but if you change your mind, you have about a month of vacation and personal leave saved up." _

"_I'll keep that in mind. Good night, Mac," she replied heading for the door. _

"_Good night. Oh, and Lindsay," he called her back before she walked out the door._

"_Yeah?" _

"_I know you and your Dad were really close, and I know talking to me isn't even close to the same, but if you ever need to talk, my door is always open." Mac knew that the death of her Dad two summers ago had been especially hard for Lindsay, and he had tried to keep that in mind when dealing with her. _

"_Thanks," she choked back a sob, the pain from her Dad's death still extremely fresh in her heart. She could still remember the devastation in her mother's voice when she called to tell Lindsay about the heart attack. It wasn't long after his funeral, that Lucy Monroe sold the ranch and moved to Allenspark, Colorado with Lindsay's twin brother, Lucas. With a final nod to her boss, she quickly disappeared out the door and down the hallway._

"Maybe he has a point," she mused to herself as she indulged the neat freak side of her personality, and straightened up her usually meticulously organized desk. Once that was done, she found herself staring at the desk across from her, his earthy smell lingering in the air, instantly transporting her back to one particular afternoon about two years ago.

"_Have you ever gotten an anonymous phone call," her curiosity propelled her to ask him before she had a chance to censor or second guess herself. _

"_Sure, it's happened," he answered nonchalantly with a shrug, his gaze still intent on the computer screen in front of him, though his actual attention had clearly shifted to her._

"_Does it turn you on?" She grinned cheekily as his head whipped around to look at her, complete surprise written all over his face._

"_Whoa! Slow down there, Montana, what'd you have in mind?" Clearly, Danny was going to enjoy this conversation. The way she seemed to have no problem voicing what was on her mind, when they were together was just another reason he found his crush on her growing stronger by the day. _

Letting go a heavy sigh, "coffee, I really need coffee," she mumbled to no one in particular as she stood and stretched, yawning in the process. Heading towards the break room, she passed Mac's office seeing him discussing something with Stella. Not taking notice of the other occupant in the break room, Lindsay headed straight for the three-quarters full coffee pot.

"People would learn anger management today, wouldn't they," the voice behind her startled her into almost spilling her coffee.

"Excuse me," she recovered just in time to keep the quaver out of her voice, and turned around to meet the lazy grin of one Danny Messer. He kept smiling softly, but didn't approach her. He was the one that messed up what they had, and so he relegated himself to waiting for her to make the first move; for her to open the door to her heart, and invite him in once again. He just hoped that his betrayal wasn't of such caliber that she couldn't do that.

"The rain," he gestured towards the soggy mess outside, "it seems like there's more crime on days like this, but not today. Everyone must be in anger management."

Taking a seat on a stool, keeping the width of the counter between her and Danny, she allowed herself to partake in the superficial conversation. "Either that, or they're finding safe, legal things to do inside."

Silence hung heavily in the still mostly empty break room, as Lindsay sipped her coffee and took a sudden interest in the counter top. For his part, Danny took up his usual hobby of watching Lindsay and tried to figure out a way to put an end to this awkward silence that seemed to follow the pair around.

"Nope. This isn't awkward. Nope, not awkward at all," he finally said the first thing that came to mind, shoving his hands in his pockets and waiting for her response.

She looked up at him briefly, "well, if you're so uncomfortable around me, there's an entire crime lab right out there," she gestured towards the glass walls, "go be uncomfortable somewhere else. I'm just waiting for Stella to finish up with Mac, to see if she wants to go to lunch."

_Dammit, she's playing the nonchalant, and Stella cards at the same time!_

"Did you tell her about this, uh, this situation?"

Studying him carefully, Lindsay realized that he was obviously worried about what would happen if their friends found out about his misdeeds towards her. " Oh, you mean did I tell her that you cheated on me, lied to me, and tried to push our problems off as my fault? No, I haven't told her about that."

Taking a quick look around, Danny was visibly relieved to see that no one appeared to have heard Lindsay's statement.

"Problem?"

"Keep your voice down. Someone could have heard that," Danny hissed, walking towards her, invading her personal space, but staying far enough away to not allow himself to touch her; or her to hit him, if she were so inclined to make such a scene...and he _really _hoped she wasn't. Her petite size made her seems relatively harmless, but in reality she was a plucky little thing when properly provoked.

He gave in to a momentary reverie of how he came to know this about her. Just before her first Christmas in New York, she'd gotten involved in a take down with a suspect close to Hawkes' size and had ultimately had to resort to a flying tackle to take him down, when the thug had knocked over a series of trash cans and crates to hamper the speed with which Detective Maka was gaining on him. Sheldon had told him about the incident, and that had resulted in an argument with Lindsay in which she accused him of not believing she could do the physical side of the job as well as any man. He'd disagreed with her, and that had led to a thirty dollar bet that she could beat him in hand-to-hand combat. Well, she did beat him, although he was was adamant that she'd cheated by wearing that damn tank top, and he'd ended up helping her spend that money later, over a couple beers and friendly game of darts, at Sullivan's.

"We wouldn't want that, now would we," she broke him out of his thoughts as she spoke her mind. "God forbid, someone should hear about how you deceived me, betrayed my trust, took advantage of me, and blamed me for your actions," she was too worked up now to care, or even notice that her voice had raised a few notches and tears were welling in her eyes. "Danny, you treated our relationship like it didn't matter. You treated me like I didn't matter. Everything we had, everything I thought I meant to you. Everything you _told _me I meant to you. It was all a lie. I thought what we had was special; that _I_ was special. I guess I was wrong," she finished her voice barely above a whisper, as she stared at a spot on the counter, stubbornly refusing to meet his eyes. She'd already let her emotions take control of her at work, something she swore would never happen again, since that one day in the morgue with Stella and Sid; she'd be dammed if she was going to let him see her tears!

Momentarily stunned by her outburst, something he thought she'd never do at work, Danny took a moment to consider what she'd said, while his brain tried to remember how to talk. "I'm sorry I lied to you. I know your trust is hard to earn and I'm sorry I lost it. It was wrong to use you as an excuse for my shitty actions and for that, I am sorry," he ran down the list of what she'd said, pausing momentarily before taking his pride (or what was left of it, at least) into his own hands and asking, "but how did I take advantage of you, exactly? I never forced you to do anything you didn't want to. I don't get it."

Finally looking up at him, and realizing that a few tears had escaped down her cheeks, Lindsay swiped at the moisture before answering. "You made me trust you. You knew I had problems trusting people since the murders, but you took the time to earn my trust. You knew about the issues I had with grieving, that I wasn't very good with dead children or grieving mothers. You knew that and you used it as your reason for having to go to _her _for comfort. You used my inadequacy as your reason to push me away, ignore me, and go to someone else for sex! That is how you took advantage of me!"

"Now wait just a damn minute, Monroe! I never told you the reason I cheated was because of your issues with grieving! Never once did I say that!" Danny was yelling now. He didn't care anymore if the whole fucking lab knew about what he'd done. What he _did _care about though was how Lindsay was internalizing this. He knew from past conversations with her, that she had a habit of doing that, and letting it eat away at her until she exploded in a torrent of unbridled emotion...like right now.

"Maybe you never said the words, but your actions said it all for you," her response was barely above a whisper, the look on her face one of someone desperately needing to get away from where they were at. "Have you ever heard the phrase 'actions speak louder than words'?"

Not sure how a verbal response would be received by her right now, Danny just nodded that he did.

"Well, your actions say less than what you said with words, but they speak a whole lot louder Danny. I don't think I can ever forget what your actions have said to me."

The devastation on her face, and the choked tears in her voice made Danny hate himself. For the first time in any relationship he's ever had with a woman, he hated what he'd done to her; how he'd made her feel. He had half a mind to haul himself into the nearest alley and kick the shit out of himself! He'd probably even invite Flack, Mac and all Lindsay's friends in the lab to take a shot at him.

Knowing that he was more-or-less asking her to twist the knife that was already in his heart, he asked, "and what have my actions said to you, Lindsay?"

She stared at him for a moment, wondering if actually telling him would be unnecessarily cruel, but she decided that he _did_ ask, and he hadn't exactly been trying to do right by her when he slept with Rikki, so she supposed he deserved the answer.

_Telling him might even help start the healing process Lindsay. Tell him exactly how you feel. Let him know that you are a real person with real feelings and he hurt them. What he does with that information, is his deal. _Penny's words echoed in her head.

"You're actions have told me that I don't matter. I was just another conquest to you. You wanted me and you got me, time to move on. Danny, when you told me you slept with her, and it was just sex; a way to forget and make the pain go away, I felt worthless. I tried talking to you, I tried giving you your space but still be there when you needed me, and this is what happened. You needed to make the pain go away and you used sex to do that, but you didn't come to me for it. I would have given you comfort sex, hell, I would have taken a personal day and let you do whatever made you feel better; but you didn't come to me. You shut me out and went to her. You made me feel like a useless piece of trash, and I don't know how you can fix that. I don't think you can fix that; the damage is too much."

Dejected, his shoulders slumped. Lindsay is the first woman he's ever loved and he made her feel like a piece of useless trash. Instead of swallowing his pride and talking things out with her and letting her in, instead of being a man and telling her what he needed and wanted, Danny took the selfish route, like always, and did what he wanted to do without thought to how it would affect others. She is such an incredible woman, with a wonderful heart and so much to give, and he had that. He had her. Instead of cherishing those things which he loved about her, he used the very things that she didn't love about herself as a reason to shut himself away emotionally, and do whatever he damn well pleased, and then just expected her to accept it. _Maybe she's better off with someone else._

"I'm so sorry Lindsay,"

"Please, Danny, please just...don't apologize anymore. You keep saying your sorry and it doesn't fix anything. I just need you to stop saying it."

"What can I say? Tell me what to say to fix this and I'll do it, just tell me what to do," he was begging her and he knew it.

"I don't know," and as quickly as the words left her mouth, she was out the door and moving towards the locker room, head down to keep her tears hidden. All Danny could do was watch. Neither of them had noticed the audience of two that had been watching the whole exchange.

* * *

Seeing Lindsay hurry past them, not taking notice to the pair, Mac looked over at Stella, "I figured whatever has been going on with her lately had something to do with Danny. I guess that scene in the break room confirms it."

When the exchange in the break room suddenly rose in volume, the two detectives wandered towards the commotion, but stayed respectfully out of the way, realizing that this was probably the only way either of them would find out what was going on, since Danny had been avoiding everyone since the Sandoval shooting, and this display of raw emotion from Lindsay was most likely the only uncensored display they would get from her about the situation. Ever since her friends were killed, it seemed to become an important thing in Lindsay's life to always keep some sort of control over herself in any situation she was in. As a result, only a very select few people were privy to witness the uncensored version of Lindsay's emotions.

"I guess I should go in there and talk to him."

"Actually," Stella spoke up before he could even take two steps, "I think such a delicate situation calls for that special brand of finesse that only I possess; don't you," she smiled sweetly.

Groaning inwardly, Mac hated how persuasive she could be without even really trying sometimes, "Do not kill him."

"I'm not going to kill him."

"Don't leave a bloody mess for the rest of us to clean up."

"No blood; got it!"

"I don't want him reported as a missing person," Mac was covering every worse case scenario he could think of. He knew Stella saw Lindsay as a little sister, and as such, could be over protective at times.

"He won't be on the back of a milk carton," he arched an eyebrow at her, "not one cut, scratch, bruise, bump, sprain, strain, or broken bone. I'll just talk to him. I think right now, Danny just needs a little straight talk from a female perspective that really knows him."

Knowing that this meant she expected him to talk to Lindsay, Mac waved Stella off and headed back into his office. His intention was to give Lindsay some time to calm down and gather herself before he went to talk to her. Subconsciously, he was hoping she would remember his offer of a willing ear and would come to him and tell him she needed to cash in some of her time off. The last thing he wanted to do, was put her on involuntary medical leave because she was quickly becoming an emotional wreck. After today, he wasn't sure he would have much of a choice otherwise.

* * *

"Rough morning," Stella startled Danny out of his self loathing as she entered the break room.

"Yeah, it's been kind of a roller coaster day so far. Surprising since there's an apparent moratorium on murder," he answered back uncharacteristically quiet.

"Let's take advantage of the quiet and go to lunch. We can catch up and talk. Haven't had a chance to do that in quiet awhile; you can fill me in on what's been going on in your life lately."

_Dammit! She knows! _

Immediately, Danny could come up with nine other levels of hell he'd rather be in right now, other than explaining what he did and why, to Stella. Quickly formulating an answer, "You know, I really can't. With how crazy things have been lately, I have a mountain of paperwork to catch up on."

"I'm pretty sure the paperwork isn't going to grow legs and walk out of here, Dan. If it did, we'd all be a lot happier," she quipped.

Swallowing a chuckle at her joke, "I'm not all that hungry."

"Whoa! Stop the presses right there! Danny Messer isn't hungry? I don't think that's ever happened before."

"Stella," he half whined.

"Tell you what, I'll eat and you can talk. Sound good," she spoke, simultaneously guiding him out of the break room and towards the elevator. "Good," she answered for him, a couple moments later, as the elevator doors opened.

Resigned to his fate, Danny just sighed, and pushed the button for the lobby. _Let the hell-catching begin._

* * *

Sure enough, fifteen minutes after returning to his desk, there was a quiet knock on his door. "Lindsay, come in," he gestured towards a chair for her to have a seat, coming and, instead of taking a seat on the desk as she'd expected, sat in the chair next to her. "What can I do for you," he asked as if he had no idea she was there about her exchange with Danny. The way Mac saw it, Lindsay didn't need him to be Mac Taylor the hard nose boss right now, she just needed him to be Mac Taylor the person.

"I...um...I think...I think..." she stumbled on her words as Mac waited patiently for her to say what was on her mind. Truthfully, what Lindsay was about to say, was almost as difficult as admitting she had fallen in love with Danny Messer. Taking a deep breath, she blurted out why she was there. "I think I need to take that time off; if I still can...sir."

"Of course you can still take it off," after a short pause, "and don't call me sir," he replied in mock seriousness.

A slight smile appeared on her face as she remembered the first time they met.

"Will this be personal leave, or should I put in for voluntary medical leave?"

Knowing the medical leave would require her to have a sound medical reason, which, at this point, would more or less require her to see a psychiatrist; something she'd tried to avoid ever since her mother had made her see one after the murders, she decided personal leave was her only option. "No, no, medical leave won't be necessary Mac. I just need some time off, to gather myself."

"Will you be going to visit your family," he asked conversationally, as he filled out the paperwork for her thirty day leave, effective immediately.

"No, I have a really good friend that I haven't seen in far too long. I think I'm going spend some time with her. She owns an art gallery in Boston, and with the prices of plane tickets these days, it would be far cheaper to just drive up there, despite gas prices lately, rather than fly all the way out to Colorado," she easily replied. Mac was always such an authority figure, that seeing him actually interested in her life and treating her like a friend, was a pleasant change of interaction.

"Okay, Lindsay, all I need you to do is sign here," he pointed to the bottom of the page that said she was voluntarily asking for the time off, "and you'll have your thirty days to go visit with your friend."

"Thanks, Mac," she quickly zipped the pen across the page, leaving her name, scrawled in the same messy way one would only expect from a doctor, "I know this isn't exactly the best time to be asking for such a large chunk of time off, with the cabbie killer case still raining paperwork on everyone..."

Mac cut off her unnecessary apology, "Lindsay, you're a great CSI and a wonderful colleague to work with. Everyone needs a break, now and then. Don't apologize for taking care of yourself. Awareness that you need some time away from everything, is a good asset to possess. The ability to speak up and state your wants and needs is a desirable companion to that asset, don't forget that."

She wasn't quite sure if Mac was talking about professionally or personally at the end.

"You know, it's a pretty slow day around here. I've written your leave to be effective immediately, why don't you go ahead and leave to get ready for your trip? You can pack up and be on the road and out of the city before the afternoon rush hour begins," Mac appealed to her practical side. While leaving the city before the afternoon rush began, was a huge plus, he was more concerned with how another run in with Danny today, could possibly go down. The last thing he wanted was to have them disintegrate into a screaming match with each other. He knew, if that happened, they would both have to be reprimanded.

"Okay," Lindsay agreed quietly. She was certain traffic wasn't Mac's motive for giving her the rest of the day off, but she was grateful for the reprieve of having to see Danny for the rest of the day, and risk making another scene. "See you in a few weeks."

"Have a good time," he gave her another one of his rare smiles as she left his office and went to collect her things.

_Dear god, please let this be the right thing to do, _he thought as he put the paperwork for her leave in the file to be processed. He sincerely hoped when she returned, she would have been able to put enough literal and theoretical distance between herself, Danny and whatever actually happened, that the two could at the very least salvage their working relationship.

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A/N: I really want to thank **DKM **and **Shelbers** for their feedback with this chapter, and the think aloud sessions that went along with the writing of this. Thanks gals!


	6. Chapter 6

Ch 6 Fine Again

Disclaimer: I don't own CSI:NY or any of it's central characters. I don't even own the Empire Diner, but it is a real place. While we're at it, I don't own Seether or the song 'Fine Again'. However, I do own my muse.

A/N: Sorry this has taken so long to get to you! I've had computer issues that required me getting a new one. So, enjoy this chapter and I'll see when I can get the next update posted!

* * *

_I feel the dream in me expire _

_and there's no one left to blame it on_

_I hear you label me a liar_

_'cause I can't seem to get this through_

_You say it's over, I can sigh again, yeah_

_Why try to stay sober when I'm dying here_

_-Seether "Fine Again" _

With the combination of rain and midday traffic, the drive to the Empire Diner had taken a full twenty minutes. The relative silence the two occupants of the Chevy Avalanche made the trip in, had only served to make it longer. As they arrived, each person was still lost in their own thoughts. Danny thinking of ways to avoid this discussion with Stella; and Stella thinking of ways to get Danny to open up to her about what was going on before he completely self destructed.

"Here we are," she broke the silence and hopped out of the SUV glad the rain had stopped for the moment, so she wouldn't look like a drowned curly haired rat by the time they got into the dry safety of the diner.

Slowly, Danny followed her inside. Before the door closed behind him, he could have sworn he heard the funeral march being played softly somewhere in the distance. Or maybe it was only in his head; he wasn't sure, and anyway, it didn't matter since he was surely going to be killed, right here, in the middle of the diner.

After being seated in a booth by the window, in one last bid to prolong the inevitable, Danny grabbed a menu and feigned interest as he perused the bountiful selection.

"I thought you weren't hungry," Stella spoke up after she'd opened her own menu.

"I changed my mind. I guess the bottomless pit is still working after all," he replied weakly, not looking up from the menu. "The roast beef on rye sounds good."

"It is, or so I'm told. I haven't tried that, but Mac says it's good. I think I'm going for the chicken plate. That's always good."

She was just about to ask him what was going on between him and Lindsay when the waitress seemingly materialized out of nowhere to take their orders. Once she had gone, Stella dove right in.

"I've noticed you and Lindsay haven't been acting the same lately. Is there something wrong?"

"No, no, everything is fine. We've both just been preoccupied lately. Why would you think something is wrong," Danny tried to brush her question off. The last thing he wanted to do was air his dirty laundry, with Stella of all people. She'd kill him.

"Well, that outburst in the break room didn't seem fine to me. What's going on with you two?"

"It'll blow over Stel, I promise. I just...did something kind of stupid and she's a bit pissed right now, is all." Sure, he knew that she knew he was lying to her, but taking crap for lying to Stella was much more preferable to the crap he would get if he told her what he'd done and with whom.

Thinking of her response while the waitress brought their meals to the table, Stella waited until she'd moved on before she spoke. "Well, I heard the word cheat thrown around in there a lot," she paused to take a couple bites, "and if that's what you did that has her so upset with you, I think she might agree with me that that's not 'kind of stupid'. Am I right in thinking that's what's going on?"

Unable to meet her gaze, Danny just nodded and picked at his food.

"Oh Danny! Who was it," she could feel a migraine coming on, and began rubbing her temples.

"Rikki."

"Sandoval?!"

Again, Danny only nodded in response. Right now, his only hope was that his death would be quick and painless.

Forget the migraine, right now, Stella was struggling to suppress her sudden desire to strangle the living shit out of Danny.

"What in the world were you thinking?"

"That's just it! I wasn't thinking Stel. Ruben died, and I was hurting. Rikki understood that," Danny tried to explain away his actions, yet again, to another person. No matter how many times he gave that reasoning, and no matter who he gave it to, it didn't seem to jive.

_Maybe Flack's right; it's just a shit excuse for shit actions. _

Sighing, she decided that death by manual strangulation probably would not be as effective as actually talking to him abut this. "So, let me see if I have this right. You were hurting because Ruben died and since Rikki understood that, you slept with her?"

"Yes. Well, no. I mean...it's...it's complicated," Danny finished, knowing she wasn't going to let him get away with that excuse.

"Well, explain it to me then," she wasn't about to let Danny use a shit excuse for hurting her friend. If he were going to ever move on from Ruben's death, he had to face some harsh realities; and right now, the harsh reality was that he fucked up, and Lindsay had left him as a result.

"I don't know how to explain it Stel, it just happened, is all. One minute she was holding his death certificate, crying, and the next we were in my bed."

Cringing slightly, at the mental image he'd just put in her head, "Danny, this didn't 'just happen'. Over the past several months you've gone from being totally devastated over Ruben's death, to being functional at work, to blowing off work; for reasons I still don't know, and then you seem functional at work again." Stella paused to take a few more bites and give him a chance to interject, but he kept silent, so she continued with her point. "And suddenly we have you forgetting Lindsay's birthday; something you haven't done since she started working at the lab, and keeping her at a distance both physically and emotionally, and the icing on the cake is that suddenly you're sleeping with Rikki? No," she shook her head, causing her springy curls to bounce, " that just doesn't add up. What part of the story are you not telling me?"

"Stella, I swear on my Nona's secret spaghetti sauce recipe that's what happened."

Okay, her urge to strangle him was subsiding, but now she really wanted to slap him upside the head...hard. "Okay, let me ask you something. Why do you feel such a pull to Rikki? What is it about her, that has you blowing off your job, friends, girlfriend, and now having an affair," she hoped these questions would help her understand his thinking better; before she broke her promise to Mac, and gave into the urge to cause him bodily harm."

Removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose, Danny gathered his thoughts before looking her straight in the eye and explaining, what he didn't fully comprehend himself, the best he could. " It's not _her _exactly."

"Well then, what is it, _exactly_?"

"I was the last one to see Ruben alive! I'm the only connection to him, she has left; and she's the only connection I have left! Don't you get that?"

As soon as the words, left his mouth, he knew that was probably the stupidest thing he could have said. He watched Stella's eyes glint with anger and/or frustration, he wasn't sure which, but probably both; and then she muttered something in Greek, that he was certain he didn't want the English or Italian translations to.

"Lindsay was the last one to see her friends alive, but I'm certain she didn't go and sleep with their fathers' or brothers' just to feel a connection to them! Dammit, Danny, you didn't even know Ruben was shot and Rikki was at home when it happened! Lindsay was there when her friends were killed! She was maybe fifteen feet away at the most, with only a door standing between her and the horror she could hear unfolding! She was only fourteen years old, and she listened to her friends die! Unless Rikki has some similar horror story from her youth, I think Lindsay would be the one who understands how it feels to be on your end of a dead child," she finished with the wind fully out of her sails now.

Shocked, Danny sat there in silence, trying to process what had just happened, as Stella paid their bill, and included a healthy tip for the disturbance she had just caused. "We better get back to the lab," she said pointedly as she headed for the door, Danny following behind her, feeling like a scolded child.

Ten minutes into the ride, Danny finally broke the tense silence that cloaked the air around them, "how do I fix this?"

Taking a moment to decide that honesty was better than giving him what could be false hope, she laid it all out, "Danny, I don't think you can fix this. Lindsay put a lot of faith in you. She trusted you, and you've proven to her that she took a wrong gamble on you."

"If she trusted me so much, then why did she only tell me she loves me after your apartment burned down?"

"She told you she loves you," this was news to Stella. She'd figured such an admission from either of them would take a minor miracle, given how guarded they both are with their emotions.

"Yes, she did...but,"

"But?"

"But she had to figure out how to let that go. She said she wasn't mad at me, but she was mad at herself for falling in love with me."

Pulling into the parking garage of the Crime Lab, "you two need to talk. I mean, seriously sit down and talk. If you can't be open and honest with your emotions, without having a catalyst of some sort, then I don't see how you could ever work. Bottom line is, it all comes down to communication, and you two have shit skills at communicating with each other, unless it's just surface stuff, you understand what I mean," she finished and waited for him to answer before climbing out of the truck.

"Yeah, I get it, Stel. I really do, we need to start over."

"That's an option, but first you need to talk to her and decide that together," she replied pushing thehe elevator button to the thirty-fifth floor.

Once the doors opened, Danny sprinted straight to his and Lindsay's shared office. He wasn't exactly surprised when he didn't see her in there. He figured she'd found something to do around the lab; after all, she hated paperwork just as much as the rest of them, so he set about taking a couple laps around the lab to find her. When his search turned up nothing, he got concerned and headed for Mac's office.

_God, I hope she didn't just walk away from everything in favor of starting over some place new. _

A quick knock on the door and Mac waved him in.

"Mac, have you seen Lindsay anywhere? I really need to talk to her," he began skipping all formality, and not bothering to disguise the urgency in his voice.

_I knew he'd get to this point sometime today. _

"Detective Monroe has taken some time off, Danny."

"Time off?" Danny couldn't believe his ears; she had left! "Well, how long did she take off? When will she be back? Where did she go? Who is she with?"

"She's taken some time off to go visit an old friend out of state. As far as where she went, how long she'll be gone, and who she's with; those are questions you'll have to ask her."

Danny was getting down right frustrated with Mac's cool demeanor and the ease with which he avoided divulging any unnecessary information. "Come on Mac! Throw me a bone here! The last time she left, it wasn't a huge secret among the team where she went. Why can't you just tell me?"

"I remember the last time she left Danny. As I recall, you ended up working sixty hours straight, to the point of being delusional; and instead of taking the day, like I'd told you to, you took a plane. I can't have that happening again, especially right now." Mac locked eyes with Danny, clearly conveying that this conversation was over.

Disheartened, Danny walked out of Mac's office and fished his cell phone from his waistband. Dialing the familiar number, he closed the door to his office, for privacy. He just hope she'd answer and would talk to him, when her voice mail kicked on, his mood fell even more, if that was even possible. At the beep he left a message.

"Hey Lindsay, it's me. Danny. Listen, I really, really need to talk to you. I've been thinking about some things, us, and I really want to talk to you. Please, just call me back and hear me out. I love you and I'll never give up on us. I hope you won't either. Call me. Please."

He hung up. All he could do was wait now. The ball was in her court, and he just hoped she'd pick it up and do something.

* * *

A/N 2: Well, there's that chapter! I'll see when I can get the new one up. School starts up for me again in exactly thirty days, and I'm also pregnant, so a lot of things are competing for my attention right now.

A/N 3: I know the show said the murders happened ten years ago and that T.V. Guide said Lindsay was fourteen when they happened. However, it makes no sense in my head for her to have been fourteen and the murders only a decade old. So, I decided she's probably about twenty-nine or thirty years old, so I stuck with the fourteen years old idea, but made the time span longer to suit my logic.


	7. Chapter 7

Ch 7 Behind These Hazel Eyes

Disclaimer: I don't own CSI:NY or any of it's central characters, nor do I own Kelly Clarkson or the song "Behind These Hazel Eyes". However, I do own Penny just like always!

A/N: I am so, so so sorry it took me so long to get this installment up! Eh, life. Still pregnant, working and going to school and raising two other little munchkins! You guys are really awesome! Reviewers and those that just read; you guys rock! Thank you so much for your unending patience with me and my crazy life! I hope y'all enjoy this chapter!

* * *

_I told you everything_

_Opened up and let you in_

_You made me feel alright_

_For once in my life_

_And now all that's left of me_

_Is what I pretend to be_

_So together but so broken up inside_

_Cause I can't breathe_

_No I can't sleep_

_I'm barely hanging on._

_-Kelly Clarkson "Behind These Hazel Eyes_

"_Hey Lindsay, it's me. Danny. Listen, I really, really need to talk to you. I've been thinking about some things, us, and I really want to talk to you. Please, just call me back and hear me out. I love you and I'll never give up on us. I hope you won't either. Call me. Please." _

With an exasperated and confused sigh, Lindsay disconnected the call and sank into an overstuffed chair. What was she supposed to do now? Danny really sounded like he wanted to talk to her, and she desperately wanted to see him again; desperately wanted things to return to how they'd been before. She didn't know what to do, so she did what she always did when she had no clue what to do next: she called Penny.

"Penny Morgan, best friend extraordinaire at your service. What can I do for you my frazzled big city friend," she chirped her greeting happily into the phone as she took a seat on one of the leopard print covered bar stools in her kitchen.

"Oh thank God you answered," Lindsay breathed a sigh of relief.

"Uh oh, that doesn't sound good. What'd he do now," Penny asked, already feeling protective of her friend and ready to blame Danny for Lindsay's apparently urgent call. She'd never met the guy, but if she ever got the chance, heaven help him because she was already planning to rip him a new one at the first opportunity. Didn't the jackass understand that Lindsay already had her PhD from the school of hard knocks, and she didn't need him furthering her education? Apparently not.

"He called me."

"Okay...and why does that have you so freaked out? I know you've talked to him since the two of you broke up."

"Well, my boss just gave me some time off, and I really need to get out of the city, so I was going to take you up on your offer to invade your spare room, and come to that benefit your hosting this weekend. You said I could stay for awhile and I have a month off, but I'm not sure how long I'll be in Boston. I might only stay for the weekend or it might be longer. I just really need to get away from this place and get some perspective on things; and I thought coming up there might help me think a bit. If the offer still stands, that is. I don't want to horn in on your time with Jacob, so if it's not okay I can probably get a flight out to Colorado later this evening or tomorrow..."

"Lindsay! Breathe," Penny abruptly cut off her friend's nervous prattle.

Giving a half hearted laugh, Lindsay took a few deep breaths, "sorry, I'm just a bit keyed up right now."

"Yeah, I kind of figured that much when you wrote a book in one breath," Penny laughed, having finally gotten Lindsay to calm down and focus. "Now that you've remembered how to breathe again, why not tell me what about Danny's call has you so discombobulated?"

Grabbing her bottle of water off the table next to her and taking a large swallow, Lindsay allowed herself a moment to collect her thoughts before answering her ever curious, pseudo sister's question. "I don't know, I guess I'm just so confused about everything. I mean, I can kind of understand why he did it, but really that doesn't make everything better," she answered, taking a shuddering breath, holding on to her tears as best she could.

"Of course it doesn't. Just being able to understand why he did something, even partially, doesn't change that he did it and that it hurt you. You owe it to yourself to acknowledge the hurt that his actions have caused Linds."

"I know, I know. But, is it terrible that sometimes, just once in awhile, I want to pretend that he never did this and that I can still trust him. Is it wrong of me to want him to love me again? To want him to tell me that I am good enough for him, and for him to tell me that his indiscretion was just a lapse in judgment that will never happen again?"

"No, Linds, that's not terrible or wrong. What you're feeling is natural. You allowed yourself to love and trust him. You felt like the feelings were mutual, only to find out that he went and did this while telling you that he was fine and just needed a bit of time; that the two of you would be okay," Penny said on a sigh, as she irritably swiped a lint roller over a patch of black fur on her jeans; left behind by the weird little cat Jacob had gotten her for her birthday. Penny looked up just in time to see the animal stuff herself in the small three inch by three inch opening that connected the two bottom cabinetry sections in her kitchen. 'It's almost like she can smell irritation,' Penny mused and laughed to herself.

"What's so funny," Lindsay asked irritably, not able to find anything she'd just admitted the least bit humorous.

"I'm sorry Linds, it's just that Jacob got me a cat for my birthday and she is the funniest little thing I've ever seen!"

Oh! Here was a topic of conversation that Lindsay already liked much better than talking about Danny and how desperately she wished she could go back to that day when she did whatever it was she did, or said whatever it was she said that made him turn away from her and give himself to another woman. Feeling the tears starting to clump in her throat, the petite brunette quickly forged ahead. "So, tell me all about this new cat," she pressed,excitedly.

Penny knew Lindsay was trying to avoid talking about Danny, and she decided that was probably best...for now, so she described her newest form of entertainment, "Well, she's about two-years old, and her name is Sunshine."

"Let me guess," Lindsay interrupted, not able to help herself from taking a dig at the last 'Penny and a cat' story she'd heard while spending a weekend with Penny and her parents at their home in Seattle, "a white cat, but you took her to one of those ridiculously overpriced pet salons and had her dyed yellow to match her name?"

"No," Penny feigned irritation with her friend, as best she could, although she couldn't help but laugh at the memory. "Sunshine is a black cat. Black with really bright green eyes, smart ass."

Lindsay giggled, "no amount of Easter egg dye is gonna change that color!"

"Hey!" Penny tried feigning defensiveness but failed miserably as she remembered the incident to which Lindsay was referring. "I was eight years old when that happened, and I thought since it came out of clothes, it would come out of cat fur too! Besides, I just wanted her to be festive for the holiday," the taller woman defended as she put out a can of tuna in an effort to con Sunshine out of her hiding place.

"I remember how festive she looked in the pictures Pen. That's the first, and last, time I've seen a Persian cat resemble a marshmallow peep! It's just a shame your Mom had to shave her to get her hair to grow back the same color."

"It was getting hot outside, the cat needed a shave anyway. She just got the chance to get a funkier hairdo than most cats, beforehand, is all," Penny defended her actions in very much the same way an eight year old might.

"Yeah, okay, I'll accept that excuse this time," Lindsay conceded as she made her way into her bedroom.

"Good. Now, why don't you quit stalling, hang up with me, and give Danny a call?"

Dammit. She should have known Penny wasn't going to let her run away from this situation. "What am I supposed to tell him, 'let's just forget how you've treated me for the past six months and get back together; but if you ever do this again, I'll cut off your family jewels?'"

Chuckling slightly, Penny thought for a moment and the proceeded, "well, I wouldn't exactly say _that_ to him Linds."

Lindsay knew very well that that wording was overkill, but it got her point across none the less. "Okay, so barring threats of serious bodily harm, what am I supposed to tell him?"

"Tell him the truth," the raven haired beauty stated, like it was the most obvious answer in the world, as she settled down to watch one of her 'Criminal Minds' DVDs.

"The truth is a complicated, painful, mess Pen. Dan hates seeing me upset or hurt in anyway," Lindsay stated the basic facts as she saw them.

"Well, that's his problem, now isn't it? If he's so protective of you that he hates seeing you in pain, then he shouldn't have slept with Ikki, or whatever her name is..."

"Rikki," Lindsay corrected irritably. Sure, Danny's actions hurt her more than words could say, but she knew that Rikki didn't deserve to have any of the blame for the situation put on her shoulders. Danny had admitted to leading Rikki in to believing that he and Lindsay had broken up around the time Ruben died. That admission from him, had led to Lindsay chucking a can of Pringles at his head.

"Excuse me," Penny questioned as she prepared to watch the show.

"Her name is Rikki. Her only child died less than a year ago; and as far as I know, she wasn't in any kind of relationship when she and Danny slept together."

"And your point is," Penny knew what her friend's point was,but she couldn't help but not like this other women no matter what the circumstances. Lindsay was her best friend, and Danny broke her heart by cheating with this Rikki woman. As far as Penny was concerned, she was just as much to blame as Danny was; and she didn't like either one of them anymore than she liked being audited by the IRS.

"My point, is that, if I can be nice where she is concerned, then so can you!"

"Okay, I'll play nice," Penny replied somewhat distracted by the images on her screen.

For her part, Lindsay could tell Penny's attention span was waning, and she had a good idea why, "Hot guys on your T.V screen, Pen?"

"Uh huh. Shemar Moore."

"Ooh!"

"I have the first three seasons on DVD. When you get here we'll have a girls night in. Just me and you with plenty of junk food, we'll make Banana Bombs by the blender full and watch T.V until we pass out! Sound good?"

"That sounds like just the kind of therapy I need," Lindsay readily agreed. She needed to take her mind of Danny and, getting shit faced with Penny seemed like as good a way as any to do that.

"But first you need to talk to Danny, see if there's any way you might be able to make heads or tails of the mess you're in now. Be honest with him. Don't make a promise you can't deliver, and don't let him do that either."

Sighing, "yeah, you have a point. Maybe after some time away from each other, we might be able to get back on track and have a fresh start."

"Is that what you want? A fresh start?"

"What I want is to forget that any of this ever happened and just go on with my life knowing that someone loves and wants me; that someone thinks I'm special. But, since this isn't going away, I'll take a fresh start. I just don't want to get hurt again."

"Well, then you need to tel him all that. Hear him out, and make him hear you. You can't decide what he does with what you tell him, but you can decide not to let this dictate the rest of your life; decide to give moving forward with him a real shot," she advised wisely. "Oh, and if it's any consolation, I think your special; one of a kind even!"

Lindsay laughed, "Thanks Pen. So are you. I'll see you probably later tonight then or tomorrow," she confirmed that she was still coming to Boston.

"That sounds great. Remember, the benefit starts at 7 o'clock Sunday evening. Bring your credit card so we can do a little retail therapy beforehand. I'll spring for your hair and nails," she laid out the plans to her friend excitedly.

"Aw, you really don't have to pay for anything, but that's sweet of you."

"Hey, I'm not offering out of obligation, I'm offering because I want to. You've had a rough few months, why not let yourself be pampered on someone else's dime? Besides, you'll love the people at the salon where I'm getting mine done. I'll call as soon as we hang up, and tell them I'm bringing a friend. And don't worry, " Penny knew Lindsay too well, "I can afford it."

Thinking for a minute, "okay, I'll call you when I get on the road then."

"Alright, now go call Danny and I'll see you later. I'm so excited! It's been forever!"

"I know, me too! Okay, I'm going now. I'll talk to you later. Bye!"

"Ciao!"

Lindsay disconnected the call and took a few deep breathes before hitting speed dial three on her phone. It rang, once, twice, and then...

"Messer,"

"Danny? Hey, it's me."

"Lindsay! Hi. What's up," Danny quickly started talking as he excused himself from the strange conversation Sid had started with he and Stella.

"I got your message. You said you'd been thinking and you wanted to talk," suddenly she wasn't so sure this was such a good idea after all.

"Yeah, yeah. I wanted to find you when I got back to the lab, after being interrogated over food by Stella, but Mac said that you'd taken some time off and were leaving town," he quickly explained, hoping she'd throw him a bone and volunteer information about who she was going to see and where. He knew he had no right to ask her those questions, not anymore, but he wanted to know, nonetheless.

"Interrogation by Stella, yikes. I see you lived through it," she tried to keep the conversation light, but couldn't help but think that he deserved whatever their colleague had dished out.

"Yeah, I did. But, she made me realize some stuff. I was hoping to catch you before you left town, so that we could talk," the pleading tone in his voice was barely disguised to the casual passer by.

"Now you're thinking with the big brain and wanting to talk. Fantastic," she muttered sarcastically under her breath, but he heard her loud and clear.

"So, is that a yes or a no," he'd be lying if he said that those words didn't hurt to hear,but he knew that he deserved it. With what he'd done, how he'd hurt her, he couldn't blame her for telling him no.

"Yeah, when do you get off shift?"

Consulting his watch, "I get out of here in an hour."

"Okay, well, I'm heading to Boston to see a friend from college. She's hosting a benefit at her art gallery Sunday night and I told her I'd come for that. Even so, I don't have to leave here until Saturday afternoon at the latest, so why don't you come by after your shift?"

Breathing a sigh of relief, Danny nodded before realizing she couldn't see him; but the rest of the damn lab could. _I hate glass walls. _"Okay, I'll be by your place in about two hours."

"Alright, I'll see you then," Lindsay went to hang up, but his words stopped her.

"Lindsay, thank you. I know I have no right to ask you to just hear me out, but thank you."

"Your welcome Danny. I'll see you soon."

"I'll see you soon then. Bye."

"Bye."


	8. Chapter 8

CH 8 Bring On The Rain

Disclaimer: I don't own it. I probably never will own it. I'm just having fun here. I also don't own Jo Dee Messina. I just like the song.

A/N: I'm back! Sorry it's been so long! I've had lots going on with having a new baby and some issues with my son. He was just diagnosed as autistic, so I'm a bit discombobulated right now. Just be patient and rest assured that the muse is not dead, she's just taking a back seat to real life at the moment.

* * *

_It's almost like the hard times circle 'round  
A couple drops and they all start coming down  
Yeah, I might feel defeated,  
And I might hang my head  
I might be barely breathin -  
but I'm not dead (no)_

_-Jo Dee Messina "Bring On The Rain"_

Two hours. She had two hours. What was she going to do? Anyone who knew Lindsay Monroe knew full well that she could drive herself stark raving mad in only a couple hours; if properly provoked of course. In her book, actually talking with Danny without the buffer of blatant hurt and betrayal or the backdrop of the crime lab constituted proper provocation.

'_Pass the time Lindsay. Don't think about it; just do something to keep your mind off the situation.'_

'_Pass the time and don't think about it. There's an idea. And just how in the hell do you propose that I do such a thing, huh?! My romantic future is riding on this talk and I'm supposed to not think about it?"_

"I'm losing my mind already. Danny Messer has driven me to the brink of insanity," she commented aloud upon realizing she'd just had an actual argument with her brain.

Deciding that she would not think about it anymore until he arrived, the emotionally confused woman went into her room and pulled a suitcase out of her closet, intent on getting her packing done. It started off well enough, until she came across the jeans, black tank top, and grey sweater that Danny had ended up hastily discarding in every corner of his small apartment the first time they slept together.

"On his pool table no less. What a romantic," she mused, before dropping the jeans and tank top into the suitcase she had rested on the bed, and immediately retreated to the kitchen.

She could pack later; right now she needed a distraction. Looking at the clock display on the microwave, she realized that she'd been lost in her own little pre-cheating Danny world and he would be there in forty-five minutes! In her mind, there was now a 'before Danny cheated', and an 'after Danny cheated' distinction in their relationship and she hated it! She hated it with a fucking passion; and sometimes she even hated him for putting that distinction there! If there was to be a contrast in their relationship status, Lindsay had always figured it would be before the baby and after the baby or before and after their marriage; not this.

"Luke, he always knows what to say," she said to herself as she picked up the phone and dialed her twin's number. The two had always been fairly close; but since their mother had moved in with him, she found herself calling his home less often than she used to. Now her preferred, much less stressful way, of talking to him was through email, instant message, and text message. And, if she knew he wasn't busy; she'd call him at work. She was feeling adventurous today though, and since it was a Friday, there was a good chance that he'd be home at quarter past three. So, Lindsay steeled herself and dialed the familiar Allenspark, Colorado phone number. After only two rings, someone answered.

"Hello," the slow voice of an older woman answered.

"Mom, it's me," Lindsay cringed upon hearing her mother's voice.

"Lindsay, it's so nice to hear from you. I was beginning to think you'd dropped off the face of the earth or something."

"No, no, things have just been really busy around here lately."

"Spending all your free time with that boyfriend I suppose," Lucy spoke, her voice laced with distaste for Lindsay and Danny's relationship. It was the same tone that she'd often used when speaking of her only daughter's teenage years.

Over the years, Lindsay had grown accustomed to her mother's cantankerous attitude, but that didn't mean that she liked it; and today, she was in no mood for the ill-tempered manner of Lucy Monroe.

"Yes, Mother. I've been quite busy with Danny. I've also been busy with my job and my friends," she tried to be a polite as possible, but given the emotional wringer she'd been put through lately, the response came off snottier than she had intended.

"Well, excuse me for wanting to know what's going on in my daughter's life. I guess a mother doesn't have that right nowadays, does she?"

Half sighing, half growling, "Mom, look, I'm sorry it came off like that. That's not how I meant it. There's just been a lot going on and I need someone to talk to. Is Luke back from the hospice yet," the minute the words left her mouth, Lindsay knew she was in for it.

"No, he's working a double. One of the nurses had her baby last night, and another is taking a personal day to make the final preparations for her wedding next week. When are you going to get married and have a baby, Lindsay? And before you come back with a smart answer, that time when you were fourteen doesn't count. That was all just a bad dream as far as I'm concerned," she finished her last sentence with a level of haughtiness that made Lindsay want to hang up the phone right then and there.

"If only it had been," she muttered, but Lucy heard her.

"If you'd been more careful, it never would have happened you know? It's like, you went to that diner with your friends, and you came home a different person!"

"That's because I _was_ a different person after that night, Mom! If you'd have put down the bottle long enough to realize that I lived through something really horrible, then maybe things would have turned out different," she finished with a hint of sadness at what could have been, growing up and going through such a horrible experience.

"If you had just come to me sweetheart, and told me how you were feeling, I would have listened; I swear," Lucy knew she hadn't always been a good parent, especially where her daughter was concerned, but she had spent so many years telling herself that she did the best she could; she really believed it now.

"It's kind of hard to talk to your mother and tell her how all the boys are making bets on who will be the first to bag the weird girl from the diner, and how it makes you feel like a worthless piece of shit to know that's the only interest anyone has in you! It's not easy to explain to your mother how you sit alone at lunch, and how girls write horrible things about you on the bathroom wall, and talk about you behind your back! I couldn't just come home and tell you that the new school rumor was that I was the one that killed them since no one else had been caught! As a teenager, you just can't come home and tell your mother these things that are going on, when she's passed out on the couch with an empty whiskey bottle dangling from her hand," Lindsay screamed at the end, feeling emotions that she hadn't allowed herself to feel in fifteen years.

Taken aback by what she knew, was her daughter's brutal honesty, Lucy defended her shitty parenting the only way she knew how; be deflecting the blame on to Lindsay. "Okay, so I was a rotten, drunk of a parent who failed you, but you failed me too! I had such high hopes for you Lindsay and you went and dashed them all! How do you think that made me feel, huh? What do you think it felt like, as a mother, to have my teenage daughter tell me that she's pregnant? What do you think it felt like to know what you were going to have to go through, being an unwed teenage mother, in a community as small as ours," Lucy never liked thinking about that event, so to dull the feelings, she poured herself a hefty shot of scotch and downed it in one gulp.

"I have no idea Mom! All I know is that I was fourteen, pregnant, scared, alone; and you were talking about how I was going to have to be sent away to live with an aunt I'd only met once until the baby was born, and then I was to give the baby up for adoption and never speak of it again. Given those circumstances, I have no idea how you felt! I knew I was a disappointment though; believe me I knew I disappointed you. Even on Christmas Eve when we were sitting in the emergency room and the doctor was telling me I'd had a miscarriage, I knew I was still a disappointment to you, despite your happiness over me having lost the baby," tears were cascading down Lindsay's cheeks now. She always felt a little sick when she thought of her mother's reaction to the news. For Lucy, it was as if a problem had been solved. For Lindsay, she had just been told that she lost the child she'd barely learned existed. Not that she wanted to keep the baby, but it was her baby; and with some terrible cramping and a good bit of blood, it was gone. She failed to protect her baby from her own body and no one in the room even gave a damn!

"I don't see why you had to have sex with that boy any way. All it got you was a world of trouble," Lucy slurred as the three shots of scotch she'd taken in half as many minutes got into her system.

"You're drunk."

"I'm not drunk; I just had a drink is all. A drink does not a drunk make."

"I'm hanging up now. Tell Luke to call me."

Without waiting for her mother's slurred goodbye, Lindsay hung up the phone and slid to the floor and cried. She cried for the baby she didn't think she wanted, but had lost so long ago. She cried for the close, loving relationship with her mother than she never had, and never would have. She cried for the death of her father; in her mind the only real parent she ever had. And she cried for Danny.

Her mother bringing up the pregnancy stirred something in her. She couldn't be sure, not until she talked to him, but she suspected that Danny had slept with Rikki for the same reason she'd slept with the boy whose name she couldn't even remember now. Her emotions had been so muddled by her friends' deaths that she could barely think straight half the time. Most days, just getting out of bed to get dressed for a day of being ridiculed as the school outcast was a chore. The boy had made her feel better. Sure the sex was awkward, and since she was a virgin, it hurt as is sometimes the case; but it made her feel better. For those few minutes when they were trying to clumsily remove each other's clothes and go through the motions in an abandoned shed, she didn't think. She didn't hear their dying screams, or the gunshots that took their lives. She didn't feel the cold tile of the bathroom walls and floor. She didn't smell their blood or the gunpowder from the shotgun. All she heard, felt and smelled where two first-timers having mediocre sex; at best.

Afterwards, he'd taken her to an ice cream shop and they shared a root beer float. At the time, he'd said it was the least he could do for not being as suave as in the movies. The next day, she found out it was the least he could do to keep her from catching on that she was just the target of a stupid bet among horny teenage boys. Four weeks later, she got the confirmation that going to that shed with him was one of the worst decisions she'd ever made.

The ringing of her doorbell shocked her out of her reverie. As quickly as she could, she stood up on shaky legs and made her way to the door. Taking a quick glance in the mirror, she knew there would be no way to convince Danny that she wasn't crying, so she dried her eyes and hoped that he would just assume it was because of him and not ask too many questions. Maybe one day she'd tell him, but now was not the time. Now was the time to see if they could somehow reassemble the shattered pieces of their relationship.

Upon opening the door, she saw Danny's face instantly transform from a mix of nervousness and hopefulness to concern.

"Montana, what's the matter? Are you okay? Did someone hurt you," he spurted out question after question, all the while hoping that he'd see the answers to her pain in her eyes.

"Danny, come in. It's nothing, really. I just got off the phone with my mother," she explained softly as she stepped aside to let him in.

"I take it you two aren't exactly best friends or anything," he'd asked the question lightheartedly, as he removed his shoes, hoping to cut some of the heaviness in the air.

"We used to get along, but ever since the murders; things just haven't been the same. A lot of unpleasant things have transpired between us," as she spoke, she eyed the small plastic bag he carried with him.

Seeing her looking at the bag, he gently handed it over to her, letting his fingers linger on top of hers a little longer than necessary. "I saw this and thought of us and how we got started on the road to being us. No pressure or anything. I know that a lot has happened and you might not be able to trust me enough again to be a couple, but I wanted you to have that, regardless, as a memory of the good days; before things got so fucked up," he finished sadly, the knowledge that his actions were what fucked things up so badly, almost choking him with emotion.

Lindsay smiled softly, "thank you Danny", and opened the bag. Slowly she pulled out a small stuffed tiger.

"That day, when we met and I gave you all kinds of hell is one of the most significant memories I have of us before we became a couple."

"What made that day so special for you? You hated me and wanted me to go back to the land of overalls, wheat fields and heard of cattle," she giggled, paraphrasing something he'd said about her coming from Montana.

"You would remember that wouldn't you? What makes that day so special is because, at that time, I couldn't imagine liking you and working with you every day; and now I can't imagine not loving you and having you involved in every aspect of my life, every day."

Maybe it was the toy that did it, or the fact that his eyes were so impossibly blue and his hair mussed from the rain. Or, maybe it was the fact that she was already at the end of her emotional threshold after talking with her mother, but before either of them knew it, Lindsay had her arms wrapped around Danny's neck, as if he were the buoy keeping her from drowning in a ferocious sea; and her face was buried in the crook of his neck as she inhaled his uniquely musky scent, mixed with the smell of his leather jacket, and the fresh rain.

Taken by surprise at this sudden turn of events, Danny's arms wrapped around her torso, acting as the strong bands of strength, she'd come to depend on them as. Instinctually, he knew she just needed to cry it out right now, so he held her firmly against his chest, one arm wrapped low around her waist and the hand of the other creeping up her spine until he reached the nape of her neck, where he could stroke her hair; something he'd found worked to gently bring her back down when she was as emotionally overworked, as she was right now.

"It's okay baby. You go ahead and let it all out. I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere. We'll talk when you're ready. You just cry and let me take care of you, okay?"

In response, he got a nod, along with a sniffle and another hearty sob.

* * *

A/N: So, this is where we leave them this chapter. They will sit down and talk, but Lucy Monroe had a lot to say and insisted on riling her daughter up first.


	9. Chapter 9

Ch 9 Tongue Tied

Disclaimer: I don't own CSI: NY, or do I own Faber Drive or the song Tongue Tied. I'm not making any money off this, but writing is cheaper than therapy, so therefore, I write.

A/N: I'm glad you guys enjoyed the last chapter. One thing I want to get cleared up is something in the last chapter. I wasn't trying to say that because Lindsay understands why he went to someone else, that it's alright now; it's not. That was there simply to say that she understands more and can start coming from a place besides hurt, anger and betrayal. I hope that clears up any misunderstandings.

* * *

I know it feels like again,  
to want to be here again.  
And we could help each other off the ground, so we never fall down again. And what it takes I don't care,  
were gonna make it I swear.  
And we could help each other off the ground, so we never fall down again, again.

-Faber Drive "Tongue Tied"

_Maybe it was the toy that did it, or the fact that his eyes were so impossibly blue and his hair mussed from the rain. Or, maybe it was the fact that she was already at the end of her emotional threshold after talking with her mother, but before either of them knew it, Lindsay had her arms wrapped around Danny's neck, as if he were the buoy keeping her from drowning in a ferocious sea; and her face was buried in the crook of his neck as she inhaled his uniquely musky scent, mixed with the smell of his leather jacket, and the fresh rain._

_Taken by surprise at this sudden turn of events, Danny's arms wrapped around her torso, acting as the strong bands of strength, she'd come to depend on them as. Instinctually, he knew she just needed to cry it out right now, so he held her firmly against his chest, one arm wrapped low around her waist and the hand of the other creeping up her spine until he reached the nape of her neck, where he could stroke her hair; something he'd found worked to gently bring her back down when she was as emotionally overworked, as she was right now._

"_It's okay baby. You go ahead and let it all out. I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere. We'll talk when you're ready. You just cry and let me take care of you, okay?"_

_In response, he got a nod, along with a sniffle and another hearty sob._

When, after ten minutes, she showed no signs of calming down; Danny slowly backed them into her living room and sat on the large plush sofa, where the pair had shared more than a few horny moments together. Right now wasn't about hormones though. This moment was about being the emotional pillar that Lindsay so desperately needed. She would tell him why she needed it when she was ready. He knew trying to force it out of her, would be akin to leading a horse to water and trying to make it drink; it just wasn't going to happen! So, he made himself comfortable on the overstuffed leather settee with Lindsay snugly tucked into his side, one arm protectively wrapped around her shoulders, and his other hand gently cupping her chin, his thumb stroking her jaw while her head laid pillowed against his shoulder as she continued to cry out years of anguish, abandonment, loneliness, hurt, anger and loss.

"There, how you doing now," Danny crooned gently as her sobs turned to sniffles and then to soft hiccups, followed by the occasional tear drop, which he gently wiped away with his thumb. "You want to tell me what caused my best t-shirt to get a free shower," he joked, noting a large wet spot on his green shirt. The woman beside him smiled shyly, but remained silent. "I'll take that as a 'no' then," he noted. "How about a drink then? I'm thirsty," he said, getting up for two large glasses of water without waiting for her to answer. He came back, resuming the previous seating arrangement, and sat two large glasses of ice water in front of them. They were silent for several minutes before Danny spoke up again, "It's not that I always mind having an entire conversation with myself; but this one might be a bit more effective if you had some input," apparently she _would_ need some prodding this time around.

"Sorry about your shirt," she said quietly, looking intently at the glass of water in her hand.

"Don't worry about the shirt; I'm not. I'm worried about you though," he decided to go for the blunt, yet thoughtful angle and see where that led them.

"Me? Why are you worried about me?"

"Because when I arrived at your door, you were in the middle of an emotional meltdown. That's not like you Linds. You're always so strong and confident. Of all the people on the team, you're the emotionally stable one that can handle whatever comes her way. What happened to that woman?"

"That woman spent half an hour on the phone with her alcoholic mother being reminded of what a disappointment she is," Lindsay spat out bitterly, then took a long swallow of water, hoping that the tears lodging in her throat would go back down with the liquid.

"Your family isn't normal either," Danny noted, careful to keep all note of pity out of his voice, afraid it would either spark anger or another round of crying from her. Given how he'd treated her while in the throes of grieving, and then the clutches of the misery and subsequent guilt he'd made for himself, he knew it sounded strange, but, he hated to see Lindsay cry. What he hated even more was the fact that, lately, she'd been crying because of the shitty choices he'd made. Choices that had hurt her deeper than he could even imagine. Knowing that he'd made such selfish and self destructive choices, not caring if they hurt her, made him want to cry. He wanted to hold her in his arms and cry, promising that he would never break her heart again, and promising that he would fix them; she would see. Most of all though, Danny wanted reprieve. He wanted a reprieve from the guilt, anger and, self-loathing he'd been carrying around for himself ever since the morning after his infidelity. It was a form of absolution only he could give himself.

"It wasn't always like this. The drinking, I mean," she began to explain. "She was a normal Mom. Yes, she had one glass too many when she and Daddy went out, but it didn't get this bad for awhile. Not until after the murders."

"Whoa! Wait a minute. Hold it right there. This is not your fault! No ma'am, you're mother becoming a fully fledged alcoholic was not your fault! Something horrible happened to you, and that wasn't' your fault either," Danny quickly jumped in, knowing all too well how this general train of thought had a tendency to derail in her head.

Looking at him, Lindsay offered a half-hearted attempt at a watery eyed smile. "I know that it's not my fault she's an alcoholic, Danny. Thank you for telling me that though." He nodded a silent 'you're welcome' and waited for her to continue; an affectionate smile gracing his masculine face and a look of patience and encouragement in his aquamarine colored eyes.

His demeanor towards her since his arrival at her place, over half an hour ago, coupled with the cogent nature in his response to her mother's alcoholism brought Lindsay to a decision; well, a couple decisions, really. First, she had to tell him about her past. He knew about the murders, but she hadn't ever elaborated on how she had coped with such intense emotions that she really wasn't mature enough to handle, nor had she told him about the hardships she faced for the rest of her adolescence. Now was the time to tell him. She just hoped that he wouldn't do what every other significant person, save for her Dad and her brother, in her life had done when she allowed her emotional difficulties to show, and abandon her for good this time. She'd gone through so much emotional abandonment in her twenty-nine years of life, that, more and more frequently, she was sure that any more would break her.

'_Dear God, please let him understand this and not walk away from me.'_

Taking a deep breath, she began her story in a shaky, hushed tone, "I didn't have anyone I could talk to…after the murders; or at least that's how I felt. Bozeman is a bigger town now, than it was when I was growing up there. Now there's a population of over thirty-five thousand. When I was fourteen, there were thirty-four thousand. I know that doesn't sound very small, but…"

"Montana, we're two of eight million New Yorkers. Compared to that, a five figure population is _very_ small," he interrupted with a chuckle, getting that shy smile he loved so much to emerge from her face.

"Point taken," she giggled in spite of herself before continuing her story. "When something as horrible as my friends' murders happens in such a small area, everyone finds out about it and quickly. They find out who it was that was killed, how it happened, when, where, and even who survived. In less than two days after the shooting, the whole town knew that I was the one that made it out alive. Everywhere I went, there was always someone whispering about me. Whenever my parents went anywhere, someone was always talking about them being the parents of 'that weird girl from the diner'. That's what people called me." She paused to keep a reign on her emotions and saw the disgust on Danny's face that people could refer to a violent crime survivor as 'that weird girl'.

"You lived through hell and people had the audacity to call you weird for it," he inadvertently raised his voice, the sudden urge to pound everyone that had ever called her that, getting the better of him momentarily. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell," he apologized when he saw her visibly recoil at the abrupt change in his temperament. I just can't believe that people, adults I'm assuming, would say that about a traumatized young girl. How did the town even find out you were the survivor? I'm sure it was a huge story out there, but the authorities aren't allowed to release the names of minors who commit or survive a crime to the media. Since the killer was still out there, I assumed they would be even more careful to keep your name under wraps," he explained, still trying to wrap his mind around the reality of a young Lindsay, _his_ Montana, being ridiculed for surviving.

"My name wasn't released to the media Dan," off his confused look, she expounded on how the town found out. "You know how cops are when it comes to gossip. Most the time, they can put old ladies to shame!" He chuckled knowing the truth of this all too well. He remembered when the entire department found out he and Lindsay were a couple, via a certain Detective Flack. By the time Danny had been asked about him and Lindsay for the fifteenth time on his first day back on desk duty, a mere week after the hostage situation, he found out that Flack had spilled the beans. When he asked how in the hell he'd known in the first place, his cocky friend's answer had simply been that any good detective could tell the difference between discussing the situation with a colleague, and dealing with the hysterical girlfriend, even if said girlfriend was conducting herself as professionally as possible. Besides, he said he noticed a bite mark on the back of her neck while they were waiting for him to come out of surgery. "Besides, I'm the only daughter of Lucas and Lucy Monroe. A little fact like that made my name a subject of immediate interest."

"Your family is pretty important there then, I assume? I'm sure you're not the only daughter in a family in that whole town," Danny commented, interested to find out a bit of her family history and her personal story; something he wished he'd put more effort in to when they were together.

"My grandpa was the sheriff of Gallatin County for fifteen years," she supplied happily. She'd always wanted to be in a relationship with someone that would want to know these little things about her. Danny had always been interested enough in whatever she talked about, but he didn't ask a lot of questions about her past. She suspected this was because he was afraid to dredge up bad memories of that night in the diner for her.

After the trial, she'd been such an emotional disaster that first night, that Danny spent half the next day on the phone trying to get Mac to let him stay with her, just for a few days until the prosecutor said she could come back home. When he kept hitting a brick wall with Mac, he called Stella and explained the fragility of Lindsay's emotional state, as he saw it, and that she had no one there with her but him, and if he left her like this, he was afraid she wouldn't be able to handle it. Stella, having been rooting for the two to become an official couple, worked her 'Stella magic' on Mac, and Danny was allowed to stay in Bozeman for the five days until Daniel Katums was sentenced to death, and then he returned to New York with Lindsay happily in tow. The pair talked a lot during the first three months of their relationship, seeing as how their relationship wasn't a sexual one at that point, but the topics had always remained rather superficial and always about them and the future. The darkness in both their pasts was something they never broached. Now, it seemed that they were going to dive right in to the dark and uncomfortable waters of the past, and they were going to do it tonight. If they really wanted a chance to change the present course of their relationship, this was a crucial step that couldn't be ignored, postponed or only done half way.

Finishing off her glass of water in one final gulp, Lindsay pulled her small, bare feet onto the couch and tucked them under her petite body, settling into a comfortable position. In an effort to keep from fidgeting with her fingers; something she often did when nervous, Lindsay reached back to the table and brought the stuffed toy Danny had brought her to rest in her lap with both hands firmly clutched around it. She idly played with the tiger's bean bag paws as she desperately tried to come up with a game plan for how to tell Danny about the aftermath of the murders. For all the conviction Lindsay had when she'd invited him over to talk tonight, she was certainly doing a shit job of getting the words to form in her brain and then come out of her mouth in a reasonable manner.

Sensing her need to say something along with the apparent inability to do so without any prompting, Danny spoke up gently. "Earlier you said that after the murders you didn't feel like you had anyone you could talk to?"

Her brain snapping back on task at his words, and a feeling of calm falling over her that he'd been paying attention and wanted to know more, prompted her to nod in the affirmative to his question.

"That must have been rough."

"It was. I'd never felt so lonely before," she chanced a look over at the handsome detective, seeing his eyes imploring her to tell him more, "I mean, there were people all around me, but I couldn't talk to them; couldn't tell them how I felt. Everyone just kept telling me that I was the lucky one and I should be glad to be alive."

"And how did you feel?"

"I felt…I felt," a small sob hitched in her throat.

"It's okay. We've got all the time in the world; just take your time," he spoke softly, one hand stroking her hair before guiding her head to rest on his shoulder as his large right hand came to rest atop both of hers, as she continued to clutch the plush toy.

"I felt like, if this is what it was like to be the lucky one; if what my ordinary existence had become was some kind of fucked up karma for surviving, then… I wish I had died."

As the reality of what she said slowly seeped itself into Danny's brain and he felt his heart stop and his blood run cold. He was no stranger to the feeling that your life was such shit, that dying was a better option than existing; but just hearing this incredible woman that he'd been lucky enough to get to know and grow to love, and be loved in return (and how he hoped with every fiber of his being that she still loved him); this woman who, when he would come into the lab having: overslept, missed his train, not gotten his morning coffee, and wearing clothes that looked as if they'd been grabbed off the floor in haste; would invariably greet him with a winning smile, hot cup of coffee and smart comment about how he looked like a ragamuffin, say that she wished to have died with her friends, was almost too much for him to comprehend.

_Say something! She just told you something she's probably never told anyone else! Say something to her you fool! _

"Ah shit! Linds, look, I have no idea how I'm supposed to respond to that. I don't know what to say that will make you feel better, or express how glad I am that you didn't die. Hell, I don't even know if it's appropriate to tell you something like that right now; but I do know that I'm so sorry. I am so sorry that you went through all that and had to deal with all those feelings all alone. I'm sorry that no one was clued in enough to ask how you were and then just shut the hell up and let you talk. I'm sorry that your mother is an alcoholic and makes you feel like you're a disappointment because of what's happened to you. I'm sorry that you don't have a good relationship with her. I'm sorry that the good relationship you and I had has been lost. I'm sorry that it was my shitty and selfish actions, taking you for granted, that did it. I'm sorry for a lot of things."

"I know you are, Danny. I'm sorry too. I'm sorry for a lot of things. I'm sorry that my friends' parents lost their children. I'm sorry that I lost my friends. I'm sorry Ruben died. I'm sorry that Rikki lost her only child. I'm sorry that I was in the emotional vicinity when you said, 'to hell with anyone that's not me', and did whatever you damn well please! I'm sorry I didn't try to help you more. I'm sorry that I was the only one vested in our relationship, and I'm sorry that I allowed myself to get close enough to you to be hurt like this in the first place," she half-screamed, half-sobbed.

Having expected an outburst from her at some point during this conversation, Danny wasn't shocked that she picked this particular time to raise her voice. However, feeling the self-contempt emanating from her was a very distressing sensation for him. Realizing the intense emotions that were driving both Lindsay's voluntary and involuntary reactions to their conversation, Danny knew he couldn't chance reacting unclearly, in words and actions, to her right now. Hoping that despite the current chaos overtaking Lindsay's mind, she would understand, and accept, the meaning behind this simple gesture; Danny tightly wrapped his muscular arms around her slender frame and pulled her into his chest, lightly pressing a kiss to the crown of her head, thanking the heavens when she didn't push him away.

"Sweetheart, you tried every way you could think of to help me. It's not your fault I didn't accept what you were offering; that was _my_ fault. I guess I was just so caught up in feeling miserable and guilty that, at some point, I didn't want to feel better. Rikki was alone and miserable," he felt her bristle when he said the other woman's name, "and part of me felt like I was betraying her if I didn't feel the same way."

"So, to keep from feeling, however preposterous it was, that you were somehow being two-faced by being in, what I thought, was a happy relationship between the two of us, yet trying to understand and support her in her grief; you decided to abandon me and our relationship for one night of grief-stricken fucking," she screamed the last six words in what could only be described as a mix of rage and crushing sadness; as she jerked her tense body from the confines of his arms and made her way to the opposite end of the small living room; trying to keep the tears running down her face, somewhat in check.

Danny sighed partly in defeat, and partly in frustration. He knew it was asking a lot to come here, say that and then expect her to just say she understood and forgive him; error corrected, please press any key to continue your relationship. Still, he was frustrated with the lack of progress they were making here.

"Look, we're clearly not making any headway here. Maybe I should just leave, and when you get back from Boston, we'll talk some more," he said as he made his way to the front door.

"Unbelievable," she sniffled as she stood by the window and watched him prepare to walk away from her and them…again, "you're running away from this."

"Excuse me?"

"This is too hard for you! You came here with a game plan for how things were supposed to go, at least in your world, tonight and now that I'm not conforming to what Danny wants to do right now and how Danny feels right now, you're leaving me!"

"Linds, I'm not running away from this, you or us. I just think we've been through enough emotions already for one night and it's time to step back and process," he explained, slowly making his way towards her.

"Is that some sort of new code with you or something?"

"Huh?"

"Time to process; that's what you said you needed when Ruben died, just some time to process. Your processing of that consisted of treating me like a useless piece of shit and cheating on me! Care to save me the trouble and just tell me what that phrase really means this time?"

"Shit," Danny muttered as he realized how his actions of the past months had made her feel and just how much work it would take to get their relationship back on track.

"Shit? What does that mean? Is that a revelation or something," she asked sarcastically, not really expecting an answer besides him walking out the door.

"Yeah, it is. While I was being talked at by Stella today, I realized some stuff, and I just realized some more stuff on top of that," he answered, stepping closer to her, stopping just on the fringe of her personal space.

"And what stuff and more stuff have you realized," she asked, suddenly feeling nervous at their close proximity.

"What I did, sleeping with Rikki, and how I've been treating you since Ruben died, was wrong. After he died, I was able to justify pushing you away, at least to myself. When you told me you were in love with me but had to let that go, all my justifications for pushing you away, treating you like crap and cheating on you went out the window."

"How did you justify your actions," she was genuinely curious about how he made his behavior okay, and if it was anywhere near the same way she had justified the things she did after her friends' murders.

Sighing, Danny reached out and clasped her delicate fingers in his hands, needing to cultivate some physical connection between them as he spoke. "Protection," off her confused look at that answer, he elaborated, "I convinced myself that by keeping you at arm's length, I was protecting you from my emotions and the actual situation. I didn't want you to get hurt, whether it was from recurring nightmares at seeing his body or feeling unwanted because I didn't want to be around anyone. It wasn't' anything against you, or to do with negative feelings about what you'd been through and what you could and couldn't handle; I didn't want to be around anyone at that time."

"Except Rikki; you didn't want to be around anyone except Rikki. As sad as it was for me to see Ruben's body in the morgue, it hurt a hell of a lot more when you didn't want me around anymore and wouldn't talk to me. All I wanted to do was help you and love you, and all you wanted to do was push me as far away as possible and cling to Rikki. When I realized that you didn't want me anymore, that you wanted to be with her, it hurt me Danny. It really hurt to realize that I'd been replaced and you didn't even have enough decency to tell me!"

"Oh, no! Montana, baby, I _do_ want you! You are the only person I want to be with," he replied, removing his hands from hers and placing them on her shoulders, lovingly rubbing her upper arms as he slightly pulled her body closer to his, "I just wish that I hadn't been so selfish that I had to lose you first to realize it." He hoped that she could feel the truth in his words, although he wouldn't be able to blame her for questioning his honesty.

"Is that what you realized after talking with Stella, that you wanted to be with me," she questioned as her hands came to rest on either side of his waist.

"No," his voice dropped to that low, intimate tone she had always found so incredibly sexy. She also knew that in that tone, he wasn't speaking from his head, but purely from his heart. Whatever he said now, she didn't doubt was the absolute truth, "I've wanted to be with you all along. At least since the doll hospital. That day, when I held your hand, I felt that spark between us. I've never felt that with anyone else, and I don't want to feel it with anyone but you…ever. What I realized when I was talking to Stella was just how selfish I've been the past few months. I realized that it was my selfishness that caused this separation between us. I miss you, Lindsay Monroe. I miss us. I want what we had back and I'll do whatever it takes to fix us. I promise," he replied before dropping his head and just letting his lips connect with hers, tenderly for a brief moment before pulling away and searching her demonstrative brown eyes, needing to know what was going through her mind right now.

"I believe you. I want us back to," she whispered before wrapping one hand around the back of his neck and pulling his lips down to meet hers, allowing him to gently suck on her lips as his arms wrapped around her, one low on her waist while the other crept up her back until his fingers threaded in her hair allowing him to tilt her head and deepen the kiss. Sighing contentedly, Lindsay opened her mouth granting him the access he wanted. For several minutes the pair stood in her living room, bodies pressed securely against each other as their tongues languidly explored each other's mouths. There was no urgency to the kiss, just them getting reacquainted with one and other as the setting sun peeked through the clouds bathing the room in a soft glow.

Once the need for air became critical, the pair pulled away breathing heavily. Danny pulled Lindsay in for a hug and buried his face in the crook of her neck. God, he didn't ever want to let her go now that he had her back. Finally, Lindsay pulled away. She didn't want to ruin the moment, but she couldn't let him have false hope either.

"I can't make any promises Danny, but I'm willing to try if you are."

"I'm not asking you to marry me…yet," he smirked at the surprised look on her face, "I'm just asking for another chance. Give me the chance to prove to you that I can be the kind of guy you deserve. I know I've hurt you and blown whatever trust we had built up between us out of the water. Give me a chance to earn that trust back, Montana," he spoke sincerely, fully recognizing that they might not make it, that the damage might be too much, but he was going to be damned if he would just walk away from what they had without giving it his all to fix what he'd made wrong.

"Okay," she nodded as she placed another hopeful kiss to his lips.

Surely, the road ahead wouldn't always be easy, but they could take whatever twists and turns were awaiting them…together.

* * *

A/N: So, am I done? With this story…yes. There's a sequel though so don't worry! My muse just works in strange ways sometimes and insists on the sequel. So, stay tuned!


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